Shallow Hal

December 10, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 114 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

A morality tale from the Farrelly brothers? What were they thinking!? If I wanted a morality tale I’d have gone to see a Disney movie.

Shallow Hal

Jack Black plays Hal, a portly fellow who has impossibly high standards in women, he thinks Britney Spears would be a great girlfriend except that she’s too muscular. Enter fate, in the form of Tony Robbins who plays himself in this movie. Hal and Tony are stuck in an elevator for several hours where Hal tells Tony all about his tragic luck with women. Tony decides it would be in Hal’s best interest if he saw women’s personalities instead of their outward looks, and does a little hypnotic magic on Hal.

Now Hal thinks he sees beautiful women everywhere and amazingly enough, when he talks to them they actually seem to be flattered! Hal’s best friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander) thinks he’s flipped his lid of course, but can’t convince Hal that he’s been attracted to rather unattractive women.

There’s got to be a romance here of course, and it has to be a fat chick.. so it’s time for Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit as Rosemary. OK, so Hal falls for Rosemary because he thinks she’s a really hot babe� do you think that eventually he might see her as she really is? Do you think!? Gee, can you take a wild guess how this movie ends?

There are a few funny parts in the movie, but not nearly enough to make this one worth watching. Don’t even bother taking a date to this one, she’ll be too bored to have a good time. They should have called it Shallow Plot instead.

Posted by John | Filed Under 2 Stars, Comedy, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, Jason Alexander, PG-13, Susan Ward, Theatrical