Who payed the critics

Truly Dreadful Film

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

A shallow man falls in love with a 300 pound woman because of her "inner beauty". Despite being a comedy 'Shallow Hal' does in fact have some interesting messages to tell about love and how someone's heart is what matters instead of their face and their body, Jack Black is great as he always is in most of the films i have seen him in and Gwyneth Paltrow despite her dumb confension about her role she does a gret job as well. Overall a great mix of comedic and dramatic elements alongside a talented cast of actors. (A+)

even if it is a new take on an old idea - character sees someone's inner beauty and is shocked when the magical curtain is torn away.Hal (Jack Black) is someone whose last words from his dying father were dad - under the influence of extreme pain killing drugs - telling him to go after pretty girls and forget about love. The message is almost pornographic. This confuses young Hal, who is all of age ten, since dad had always been an upright citizen and a preacher too. Hal blocks this shocking scene out of his conscious mind, but the message becomes the ruler of his subconscious. As a result, as an adult, he is constantly going to bars with his equally shallow pal (Jason Alexander as Mauricio) and trying to chat up and dance with girls way out of his league, and he's not even subtle about it.Fate changes when Hal gets stuck in an elevator with Tony Robbins who puts him under a spell that will make him see only the inner beauty in people, not the external packaging. He winds up catching a glimpse of Rosemary Shanahan, who has a beautiful soul, but is also 300 pounds. At first she thinks he is just making fun of her, but when she finds out his interest is real they start seeing each other. The catch here? Her dad is Hal's boss, and he's been getting nowhere lately getting a promotion at work. One day when Hal and Rosemary come over to her house Hal ends up talking one on one with the boss, and ends up getting the promotion he's been wanting. Of course his coworkers see his progress, see him cozying up to Rosemary and think that he is lower than lice - using the girl to advance his career. As for Mauricio, he goes in search of Tony Robbins to try and undo whatever spell has been cast on his friend, because it is disrupting his social life and Hal's new aesthetics makes no sense to him.When Hal is put back to "normal", everybody now looks how they did before. Their physical being is what he sees. This means that he is doing everything he can to not actually see Rosemary since he is in love with her and doesn't want to lose that feeling. From Rosemary's end it looks like Hal got his promotion and is done with her. This is the same opinion that his new boss - who for some reason doesn't fire him - and his coworkers have. How will all of this work out? Watch and find out.There is plenty of low brow humor here, but it is seasoned with a bit of empathy...EXCEPT that the film still indicates that being overweight is just about the worst thing that could happen to someone AND that the reason for that is always out of control gluttony. In other words if you are not a size five it is your own fault. I've never been a fan of Jack Black but I think he did a good job here. As for Jason Alexander, as Mauricio he is still playing George Costanza from Seinfeld, but that is fine with me.

At the age of 9, Hal Larson gets superficial advise from his delirious dying preacher father. He tells him to judge woman by their looks and forget about love. Hal (Jack Black) turns into a shallow man almost as bad as his friend Mauricio Wilson (Jason Alexander). His neighbor Jill (Susan Ward) dumps him. He gets stuck in an elevator with motivational guru Tony Robbins who hypnotizes him into seeing inner beauty as outer beauty. He starts dating overweight Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow) but he can only see her inner beauty.For a movie making fun of shallow behavior, it's actually pretty shallow itself. All the beautiful people are ugly inside. It's difficult to see Hal or Wilson ever getting a date. All the fat jokes essentially clash with the theme of judging people by their inner self. Even if a joke hits, I wonder about who the joke is making fun of. I am willing to give the Farrelly brothers credit for trying to tackle something substantial. There is a touching rom-com buried beneath everything. They do it in such a loopy way that I don't think it actually works. Although the little girl really hits me in the heart.

Don't be confused by the subject matter of this comedy, this is a very touching movie.A Shallow man (Jack Black) is obsessed with only dating beautiful women, until he is hypnotised in to only seeing the inner beauty of people he meets. He then meets Rosemarie (Gwyneth Paltrow) and falls in love This was Jack Blacks first lead role. After roles in 'Cable Guy' and 'Enemy Of The State' and a very good supporting role in 'High Fidelity and he is perfectly cast as the title character. Until 'School Of Rock' two years later, this was his best performance. Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow seems to be having fun, and she looks great in a thong. However for me I would have preferred to see her in the fat suit more, to highlight what everyone else was seeing.... But I suppose you don't pay millions to have Gwyneth Paltrow in a movie, and have her hide in a fat suit for the majority of the movie.Jason Alexender is very annoying (as Blacks bitter best friend, who is annoyed at losing his wing man on nights out) and distracting with his bizarre hairline. It's silly if course (it's a Farrelly brothers movie) but it's also very very sweet!!