He may be shallow, but Hal's feelings run deep when he meets the
perfect girl. A piece of deathbed-inspired fatherly advice
skews eight-year-old Hal's thinking so that his life becomes a
quest for the hottest girls possible. "Don't settle for
average (insert offensive slang for female reproductive organ
here)," his father tells him. So, Hal doesn't.
Until he meets self-help guru Tony Robbins in an elevator and
becomes hypnotized so that he sees inner beauty as outer
beauty. Enter Gwenyth Paltrow's character, who everyone else
sees as a "rhino," but who, to Hal, looks like regular
old Paltrow. They have a funny and sweet courtship. But that
can't last forever . . . or can it?
One
interesting theme that could have been explored more thoroughly:
If Hal sees his girlfriend as beautiful, is that necessarily any
less real than what everyone else sees? Is living a fantasy
wrong if it makes you happy? Is beauty really in the eye of
the beholder? The conclusion seems to be a good one--
someone you love will indeed be just beautiful enough for you, no
matter what they look like to someone else, even if you can see
their horns shining in the sunlight. The upsetting side: it
took Hal's being tricked to realize that.
Overall, this is a funny film made all the funnier by Jack Black's
natural comedic ability. The plot may be predictable, but it
is not entirely so, and it's satisfying if you can handle the
premise. Fat jokes? Sure, but they come off not as
demeaning so much as endearing. There are jokes for the
shallow (giggling flesh) but there are also jokes for the
deep. You're not at risk of drowning, but you can take a
nice swim through some heartfelt sentiment and some hearty
giggles.
I
was a little worried about this movie-- from the previews alone it
seemed to me that Hal still only really liked the girls because he saw
them as hot...and personality really didn't enter the formula at
all. Where's the moral in that? I was also afraid that the
movie would just be an attack on ugly people or overweight people.
I was wrong-- that just shows how important it is to not judge a book
(in this case, a movie) by it's cover. Anyway, the movie is
enjoyable and has a pretty good message-- I recommend it for Jack Black
and Gwenyth Paltrow fans, but wait until it comes to video-- it's a gThe Popkorn Junkie -- Shallow Halood
stay-home-and-watch-a-movie-with-your-boyfriend kind of rental.
Billy Ray ( 2 out of
4 pops )
I went to a sneak preview of "Shallow Hal" with the greatest
of hopes. I went hoping for another "Kingpin".
Instead, I received something not entirely enjoyable. Sure,
there are plenty of laughs in "Shallow Hal"--but, there are
plenty of laughs in every Farrelly Brothers comedy, even if they are
terrible. I laughed until I cried in "Me, Myself, and
Irene", but the movie was a complete and utter disaster from
start to finish. Jack Black is a natural comedian and he does a
fine job. Gwyneth Paltrow is beautiful and elegant in her slim
scenes in the film and brings a certain grace to a fat suit.
Jason Alexander is always humorous as the hideous little troll of a
sidekick, and self-help guru Tony Robbins is quite charming in his
little cameo. Despite the good performances and laughs,
"Shallow Hal" fails for 2 reasons: (1) we expect the
Farrelly Brothers to shock us, and this film does anything but, and
(2) an entire film of nothing but running sight gags gets a little
annoying at times. "Airplane!" worked because it was
inventing the genre. "Shallow Hal" is merely mimicking
a good idea. I know that's not fair, but that's the way the
cookie crumbles. "Shallow Hal" is good for some laughs
but--for anything more--it really is as shallow as they come.
