6.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.4 |
Following the advice of his dying father, Hal dates only women who are physically beautiful. One day, however, he runs into self-help guru Tony Robbins, who hypnotizes him into recognizing only the inner beauty of women. Hal thereafter meets Rosemary, a grossly obese woman whom only he can see as a vision of loveliness. But will their relationship survive when Hal's equally shallow friend undoes the hypnosis?
Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, Jason Alexander, Joe Viterelli, Rene KirbyComedy | 100% |
Romance | 39% |
Imaginary | 6% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
French: DTS 5.1
Spanish: DTS 5.1
German: DTS 5.1
Italian: DTS 5.1
Japanese: DTS 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Russian: DTS 5.1
Czech: Dolby Digital 2.0
Hungarian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Thai: Dolby Digital 5.1
Turkish: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
For a brief window in the late 1990s and early '00s, the Farrelly brothers were the kings of gross-out comedy, with a string of four movies--Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, There's Something About Mary, and Me, Myself & Irene--that revel in eww-inducing body fluid gags, like the now-infamous scene in Mary, where Cameron Diaz mistakes a gloopy strand of errant ejaculate for hair gel. (Haven't we all?) But when the market became flooded with me-too imitators, the Farrellys changed up their routine with 2001's Shallow Hal, toning down the disgustingness and ratcheting up the sweetness. More so, they made a film that's positively moral, a body-image satire that tries to promote a "don't judge a book by its cover" message. (I say tries because it goes about it in a rather back-asswards way, but we'll get to that in a second.) Of course, most people remember it as "that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit," and yes, that's probably the film's defining characteristic. It's easy to dismiss Gwyneth as a tone-deaf movie star whose luxury living advice--by way of her GOOP e-mail newsletter--spits in the face of recession-riddled middle class America, but you've got to give credit where credit is due; she was game enough to take on this very uncharacteristic role. I mean, no one could've foreseen Gwyneth Paltrow with cankles.
Like Fever Pitch, Shallow Hal arrives on Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's watchable but looks noticably dated, as if it was prepared from an old master originally intended for DVD. I'm not positive this is the case, mind you, but regardless--high definition eye candy this ain't. While Hal doesn't have the edge enhancement issues that crop up on Fever Pitch, the image is consistantly soft and fairly noisy, with a thick grain structure that also seems overlayed with chroma noise. Clarity is better than the DVD, of course, but not drastically so. Facial and clothing textures are slightly more refined, but you never see the level of extremely fine detail that's apparent in the best Blu-ray transfers. Color fares betters; it's bright and vivid without being oversatured, and though white highlights are sometimes blown out--I suspect this is an intentional choice on cinematographer Russell Carpenter's part--the picture has a nice sense of punch and contrast. This is no must-buy upgrade, and I'm almost certain the film could look better, but if you must own Shallow Hal, this is definitely the version to get.
Fox has given the film the usual lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix, and as you'd expect from this kind of film, the results are pretty low- key. Let's be honest; Shallow Hal isn't going to be your go-to disc to show off the dynamic expressiveness of your home theater system. The real channels don't get a whole lot of play, but you will hear occasional ambience in the surround speakers--outdoorsy sounds, room noise--along with rare directional effects. William Goodrum's score--and pop songs from the band Ivy--fill out the remainder of the mix, and the music sounds decently full and grounded. The real focus here is on clean, balanced, easily understood dialogue. The disc includes French and Spanish dubs--in Dolby Digital 5.1-- along with optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
Until yesterday, I hadn't seen Shallow Hal since it came out in 2001, and it's a lot less awful than I remembered. I know that doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement, but for some reason I had built up the film in my mind as some sort of monumentally horrible experience, when in actuality it's a fun little comedy. It's not perfect, and it's not the Farrelly brothers' best, but it's a decent watch for a lazy weekend afternoon. 20th Century Fox's Blu-ray is pretty much a straight port of the DVD--complete with a rather dated-looking high definition transfer--but it's the version you'll want to pick up if you don't yet own the film.
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