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Shallow Hal

Shallow Hal

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Weigh To Go!
Review: This is a great comedy. I really enjoyed it. It has a great storyline. I must warn you if you are overweight and don't have a sense of humor you may just find this movie offensive. But in the end it all makes sense.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Shallow Hal was a hoot!
Review: I really enjoyed this movie. Hal was a total boob, but he was kind and likable even when he was drooling over gorgeous women. There were several scenes that I thought were quite funny, in particular his "pink eye" where he uses vaseline to cover his eyes so he won't see Rosemary! This movie seemed to cause a backlash from individuals who did not think 'fat' jokes were funny. I don't think the movie was making fun of fat people, but giving a much deeper message that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. I think a comedic movie to portray these messages makes it fun. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but I found it quite enjoyable and plan to purchase a copy for my home collection.

On a character note, Jason Alexander is good, but very much like his George role from Seinfeld, so no new sides to his acting here, but his character fits the movie, so I enjoyed him too.

Gwyneth did a fine job as Rosemary, pretty and beautiful, even in her 'fat suit'. Overall, a fun movie, worth 4 stars.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Shallow Hal
Review: It was the funniest movie I ever seen.Because every part of it was funny.I think every body should see it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: REAL COMEDY...TO MAKE YOU LAUGH OUT LOUD...
Review: When Hal (Jack Black) was a boy, his father taught him to aim high, to not settle for anyone less than "perfect." When he grew up, he stuck to his father's words, but for some reason he never could find a perfect girl, or rather, they were too shallow to go out with him. Luckily, he runs across Self-Help guru Tony Robbins, who grants Hal the special power of seeing women by their inner beauty. Suddenly, the ugly girls are beautiful, and the beautiful girls go both ways. But when Hal finds the girl of his dreams (Gwyneth Paltrow), he can't see how extremely overweight she is. This leads to a lot of strange misunderstandings, but over time the two fall in love. Hal's best friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander), who's even more shallow than Hal, isn't going to let his friend ruin himself like this though, and does all he can to thwart the relationship. When he finally succeeds in curing Hal of his vision problems, Hal will have to learn to see inner beauty with his own eyes.

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If you're a person who likes a real funny comedy with romantic scenes, then "Shallow Hal" is for you. This isn't a movie where you can say, "Okay, I watched it once, I can't watch it again." This is a movie which you can watch over and over again. I rated it 5 stars to be an absolutely fantastic movie.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Overly Shallow
Review:

It was a struggle for me to get through this entire movie. I kept giving it a chance, hoping it would get better - it finally did...when it was over. Jack Black plays Hal, a guy who will not settle until he finds the perfect girl because of what his father told him on his deathbed. As an adult a freak accident leaves him stuck in an elevator with self-help guru Tony Robbins, who decides to 'help' Hal with his search. Right away Hal begins to find 'perfect' girls - or so he thinks. It turns out he is the only one who sees them as perfect. His just-as-shallow friend Maurice (played by Jason Alexander) tries to tell him better, but Hal is totally in love with Rosie (Gwenyth Paltrow).

Maurice ends up tracking down Tony Robbins and breaking the spell he put on Hal, much to Hal's chagrin. After the spell is broken, Hal runs into many of the people he met earlier and they seem less perfect than he remembers him (including a heart-breaking scene with a young burn victim). He decides he really loves Rosie, no matter what and they end up together...

This movie was disappointing on so many levels, including Jack Black being Hal - he does not have much room to be shallow, which I guess is the point they were trying to make? The Farrelly brothers, known for their gross-out humor have definitely crossed the line with Shallow Hal. Spend a couple of bucks to rent Shallow Hal, but don't buy it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Very Interesting Topic for a Film
Review: This may be a pretty long reveiw then my last reveiws but only because by reveiwing this movie and watching it you are bringing up a more bigger topic then laughing.You are bringing up the topic of how this movie may feel to others.If you have ever seen a Shallow Hal trailer or TV Spot you know that the film is about how a man who only dates PRETTY women gets the powers to see UGLY women be pretty because there inner beauty makes them very pretty.It's not complex but how do some people feel about this subject.The man character Hal(played by Jack Black)meets a girl named Rosemary(played by Gwen Palthrow) who is really 300 pounds but in the eyes of Hal he sees her inner beauty which is a skinny sexy women.Hal friend Marcio(played by Seinfeld's Jason Alexander)see's Rosemary for what her appearence's are and has to somment to Hal about it more then once.Hal does not know what Marcio is talking about because he sees Rosemary as a babe.But what about the subject.Doesn't that make some people feel angry at the Farlley Brothers who wrote and directed the movie?Wouldn't that make them angry and hate the movie?That is not true in this movie.The movie is a very touching movie which is a first in the Farlley Brothers movies.If anyone has seen There's Something About Mary,or Me Myself and Irene you would know that the Farlley Brother are not touching people but in this movie they prove themselve wrong.The movie should not make people angry at the writers because the only reason for this movie and many other comendies is for you to laugh and not pay attention to the topic's that could make people angry.That is the reason for the movies anyway.

The movie is very very funny except for a the beginning which is why I only gave the movie 4 stars instead of 5.But the DVD is loaded with extra's including 11 pretty good extra scenes.They are funny and some of them are dull but I can see why they cut those scenes out of the final film.There is also four making of features including the Comendy Central Reel Comendy special,an inside look at the makeup of the movie,a special feature about the infamous spash scene and an HBO Making Of Feature.There is also a music video of Shelby Lynn with the song "Wall in Your Heart".There is a commentary from the writers and directors,and many promotional spots.There is a trailer from,Minority Report,Unfaithful,The Banger Sisters,Shallow Hal,and a Shallow Hall soundtrack spot,and a Farlley Brothers DVD trailer.

So Shallow Hal is a good movie to watch and you should overlook the topic of ugly people not getting dates because even though that is a main topic of the movie you should just take the movie for what it is....a good entertaining funny movie.Thanks for taking the time out of your day for reading my reveiw.

ENJOY!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Simple
Review: I agree with a reviewer out there: If you love "Roxanne" (Steve Martin, Daryl Hannah), you'll love "Shallow Hal". Period.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Funny and touching all at the same time
Review: Let me start off by saying I'm an extremely overweight person (OK, let's just say fat and get it over with), and I was not offended in the least at this movie. In fact, I loved it. I had a lot of empathy for the Gwyneth Paltrow character in the movie, with her extreme lack of confidence and poor self image. What makes it a great acting job on her part is that she is the VERY SAME CHARACTER whether in or out of the "fat suit". The only part of her performance that doesn't quite ring true is her unihibitedness in the bedroom with Jack Black. I'd think it would take a few times before she'd feel comfortable "leaving the light on", if you know what I mean. But, having broken a chair or two in my time and having suffered under-the-breath comments and stares I know what it's like, and that's just reality. It's a bonus realizing that Gwyneth Paltrow probably grew as a person when she ventured out in the fat suit and saw just how lonely the "fat life" can be.

To be honest, I also identified with Jack Black, in a way, as a guy who has higher standards than he should in the more superficial categories. And, let's face it, it doesn't hurt to have beautiful women like Gwyneth Paltrow, former Baywatch babe Brooke Burns, and Jack Black's lovely neighbor (whose name escapes me) to add to the eye-candy in this movie.

Nearly every move was perfect. It was a stroke of genius to cast self-help guru Tony Robbins as the person who "hypnotizes" Black's character to only see the inner beauty of people and not the outer. Jason Alexander plays, to me, what is a very George Costanza like character, rejecting his girlfriend because her second toe is half an inch longer than her big toe, when he has a secret defect revealed later in the movie that is much more grotesque. He, in fact, is much more shallow than Hal. The coolest character is Walter, who walks on all fours because he has spina bifuda. This is played by a non-actor who actually has the disease and actually gets around just that way. But that doesn't get in the way of him enjoying life to the absolute fullest.

I am normally not a big Farrelly Brothers fan. I find their movies generally crossing the line from humor to stupidity. But this movie shows that the boys have a heart. Highly recommended.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A Mixed Bag For Me!
Review: I have to admit to being less impressed by this movie than many of my fellow reviewers. While I did enjoy certain aspects of the movie in terms of the possible lessons it had to teach, and also enjoyed some of the obvious fat jokes running through the sequences, I also had the distinct impression that the directors were employing this social commentary in an attempt to use it commercially by making it grist for a funny movie. Given the fact that this duo is well known for their infantile and coarse approach, it is hard to believe that their motives were as noble as some of the other reviewers seem to believe. Add onto that fact the unavoidable truth that for people trapped in fat and ugly exteriors, no such movie magic is likely. Their lives are anything but comical.

After all, the fact that the person Shallow Hal keeps seeing in his self-imposed cure of seeing the 'inner person' is Gwyneth Paltrow, an astonishingly beautiful young lady. And all the fat suits in the world cannot suspend our knowledge that underneath her 'actual' appearance lies the irresistibly delicious morsel of human protoplasm. Therefore, pretending that we can suspend our knowledge of what Gwyneth really looks like underneath the fat suit is the key lie undercutting the whole premise of the movie as social commentary, and I for one am not buying into it. This is a slick attempt to cash in on people's meaner and coarser feelings, and then make those feelings and reactions socially acceptable as long as we get the 'moral' that it is no fun and no fair to have to be fat and ugly even as we are laughing at all the fat jokes that come streaming through.

Having said all that, I must also admit that the storyline is interesting, and the cast is quite credible and convincing, especially Jack Black as the title figure that transforms himself from chronic shallowness to substantial compassion along the way. So, this is at best a mixed bag. As I said earlier, I suspect the directors have deliberately mined a vein of palpable human pain and sorrow in search of a marketable movie product, and am a bit ambivalent about whether all the fat jokes in the movie really are so much in service to the learning of Shallow Hal's moral lessons as they are the unfortunate grist for a comical movie that commercially exploits the sadness and pain of overweight people. I rate it three out of five stars for that reason. Enjoy.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: 3 1/2 stars , a lot of fun
Review: I missed it in the theater but read about the movie at the time, recently I got to see it on pay per view and thought it was O.K.
Hal is a really shallow character who seems to think of women as nothing but sex objects, he spends his free time bar hopping & whatever just looking for some woman to have sex with, caring only for her looks. The guy is rude and crude to most everyone, even Tony Robbins, who he gets trapped in an elevator with one day.
Robbins hypnotizes him (this isn't really explained in the movie)into seeing people for what they really are and not what they actually look like. For much of the rest of the movie Hal spends his time with women that are beautiful inside, he can't see how fat or ugly they are physically.
Things come to a head when Hal starts going out with the bosses daughter Rosie, she's really enormous. Hals pal, played by Jason Alexander, is a loser like Hal who is so upset by his friends weird behavior that he tracks Robbins down and learns how to break the trance. After that Hal soon ends up breaking Rosie's heart and gradually learns that it's what's inside that counts.
I remember reading that Gwyneth Paltrow actually wore that fatsuit out on the street to experience the predjudice large people feel. That thing was amazing on her, it looked so real.
I'd love to see the extra's on the DVD they ought to be a lot of fun.


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