Shallow Hal 2001

Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News: A message movie of such surpassing stupidity that the message doesn't seem to have gotten through to the people who made it. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: The oddest part of all this is that it's not very funny. Read more

Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune: So intent on driving home its worthy if not mind-blowing message that it becomes surprisingly conventional. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: We've seen so many crummy comedies that try to be There's Something About Mary or something like this. And the Farrelly brothers come to the rescue and show us how it's done. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: All this sweet, inoffensive stuff is actually pretty boring. Read more

Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: Hypocritical and condescending in ways its makers seem completely oblivious to. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: There are enough moments of demented comedy to make you aspirate your popcorn, but by the end you may find yourself, with some amazement, sniffing back tears. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Paltrow's intelligence has the effect of adding weight, as it were, to a thin visual joke. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Farrelly brothers have done themselves proud with this movie. They've shown us their inner beauty. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Created in the broadest strokes imaginable, Shallow Hal lacks even a vestige of subtlety and is rarely so much as amusing. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: Who among us doesn't need to be reminded now and then how dumb and hurtful it is to judge people based on how they look? Read more

Paul Clinton (CNN.com), CNN.com: If you've seen the trailer, you've seen the best of the movie, and there isn't really that much good stuff to go around. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: We're warmly encouraged to feel the hurt that Rosemary constantly lives with, made vivid by a notably touching, sensitive performance from sylphlike Paltrow. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: The Farrellys had a golden chance to be creatively, satirically, usefully offensive -- and they wimped out. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: A sweet, somewhat dumb romantic comedy that's almost impossible to actively dislike. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Often very funny, but it is also surprisingly moving at times. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: May be the best Farrellys movie yet, even though it doesn't live up to the pair's usual level of uproarious, crass comic genius. Read more

Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle: It gets away with fat jokes at the same time it seems to be on the side of the angels and inner beauty. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The movie's valuable message that we must look beyond physical appearances to find the heart within ... is drowned out by the din of loathsome idiots mocking physical appearances. Read more

Derek Adams, Time Out: The film is not as funny as their best, but fascinates in the discomforting way it foregrounds the brothers' normally buried, facile moral dialectic. Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: The only crudeness here is in the uninspired filmmaking and a washed-out look. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: With the relatively untested Black coming on awfully strong, the lack of directorial finesse lets the enterprise down, creating some clunky scenes and dead air where laughs might have been expected. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Not only light on laughs but discomfitingly didactic in its disgust. Read more