Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Awesome Movie

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Phat Girls was fricken funny. It was full of good jokes and Mo'Nique is a charming comedic lead. A romantic comedy is not supposed to be Shakespeare. It's supposed to be cute and light and usually formulaic, which this movie was. Given that, the story took on a social issue and made it entertaining, humorous and totally watchable. If you can't crack a smile or allow yourself at least one belly laugh while viewing this movie, then you're probably the problem, not Mo'Nique.

Now i Don't usually review movies but when i saw the rating on here i had to put out my opinion!First off it doesn't matter is your a big girl, a little girl, a curvy girl or a flat a** girl! It doesn't matter what your race is, if your pretty or not we are woman and we have to be proud to be one!! To be honest it don't matter what you look like, how much you weigh or what you been through You are in this world for a reason and girl make the best of that!!This is a must see movie for All woman! Its about Love - Loving Yourself!

To be honest, I found Phat Girls very disappointing. It could have been so much better. I know Mo'nique can play a confident woman, I watch The Parkers. I didn't mind her playing a woman who isn't confident and has self-esteem issues, that is a good role as it reflects many of the target audience. What I did mind was the overall message was so pushed down to make way for hateful discrimination in this wish-fulfillment movie that it was overly blatant. And I don't mind wish-fulfillment movies, that's why I bought this so I could live a little fantasy where an overweight woman (like I am) can get the hot guy and live happily ever after.What bothered me the most was how in your face the whole "I'm fat, and everyone around me is a hater" the movie was. Seriously, everyone who was not Mo'nique (and I do love her, really), her friend, and the two Nigerian guys they hook up with was just portrayed as one-diminsional villains. Every woman (okay, with the exception of a few nameless Nigerian women in one scene) was a sheer bitch to Mo'nique, every guy didn't appreciate her or was just there to trade fat jokes. Now, I'm the size as her friend, Sally, Sandra, something with an "S", but my mother was Mo'nique's size. Never have we encountered the sheer stupidity in the film where a fast food server would say, loud enough for everyone to hear, about what fat asses we were. This scene in the movie was just to have Mo'nique share "Yo Momma" jokes and verbally beat down the kid. While, yes, for his comment he deserved a beating, it did not show Mo'nique's character in a good light. Instead, it portrayed her as a person who is verbally abusive to anyone whom she can be abusive to in order to boost her self-esteem.When meeting with the Nigerian men, they swarm around Mo'nique and her friend, leaving the skinny cousin to the sides. While this is expected in a wish-fulfillment movie, again, it was handled poorly. The men make comments (in Nigerian) on how the cousin must be dying and malnurished. Which made no sense to me since they are at a pool in Palm Springs surrounded by the "American" ideal of beauty in women, and Mia was not that skinny. She was fashionably skinny, but not to the point where anyone looking at her would think malnurished. Her bones were not showing and she clearly had some muscles and tone. It was just to drive home that skinny was evil. This skinny girl, who was portrayed as self-centered and rather mean, deserved being on the other end while Mo'nique was lifted as a goddess. I don't mind that, and the only saving grace was the development of the cousin by the end, but at that moment it was so heavy handed a neon sign flashing, "Phat is sexier than skinny" would have been more subtle.There was also Mo'nique's character's attitude. As mentioned, she got in a verbal fight with a kid because he insulted her. For most of the movie, we are treated to a barrage of hateful rhetoric either spoken or thought through this character. It's considered okay because, of course, every person in the world is out to be mean to Mo'nique because no one realizes that she is really a sexy goddess who deserves respect. However, it's hard to respect a person whom you know is thinking mean thoughts over every little thing. I would have enjoyed her character more and the movie more it wasn't so ham handedly done to pound it into my skull that Mo'nique, and only women who not skinny, deserve to be well rounded and get respect. If you are not a size six, the whole world hates you, so be mean and spiteful back because you've been hurt.I really wanted to enjoy this movie more. I really did. As I said, I knew it was wish-fulfillment. Some of the things I've seen complained about, I actually liked about the movie. Like Mo'nique's break down scene. I've felt like that, and it made the movie better that afterward she picked herself up and made a decision to make her life better. Instead of just waiting for Prince Charming, her character got her courage to make her dreams come true. That part I liked. I liked the hidden message of be happy with who you are, even if you are not skinny. Well, the skinny part got muddled since the show hammered a lot of "Skinny bitches are evil" into our heads. So I guess the message was really, "If you're not skinny, be happy with who you are." I just really wish that, in order to portray this character, the movie did not feel like it had to beat into the audience that "Phat" is wonderful and "Skinny" is bad. I know Mo'nique can play a positive role model to overweight women. As I said, I watch her on The Parkers and feel that her character there is a much better representation than this character. I leave watching the Parkers feeling better about myself and enjoy Mo'nique's performance. I left watching this feeling embarrassed for being overweight because Mo'nique was portrayed as such an awful person. And I know this movie could have been so much better.So, for what it's worth, I gave it five out of ten. It lived up to being a wish-fulfillment movie, it tried to bring a positive message, and I enjoyed Mo'nique even if I didn't really like her character for the first half or so of the movie.

According to the IMDb "Phat Girlz" was directed by an adult human. Okay, let's go with that.Imagine hitting your child over the head with a cinder block and handing them the digital camera. This is the movie they'd make if they survived the cerebral hemorrhaging. Ostensibly "Phat Girlz" was made to celebrate Big Beautiful Black Women, but this movie does them no justice. It's a one-dimensional fantasy without a single link to reality... it's part cartoon, part comedy sketch, part morality play. It's a naive, one-note, knee-jerk reaction to a problem that is never clearly established or resolved. And it's bad.Mo'Nique is the only good thing here, a natural, likable actress with enough personality to keep this from being an utter humiliation. Sadly, this is filmmaking at its most inept and incompetent. The movie is shot on shabby digital video with sloppy cuts and lazy dissolves, and the basic rules of direction are ignored: actors don't speak into the camera or look at their co-stars- there is barely any interaction between the actors at all. Most of Mo'Nique's "punchlines" aren't spoken- they occur in her head as voice-overs. For some reason whenever she is sexually aroused we hear the sound effects of jungle drums and screeching monkeys. Interesting choice.The plot is heinous: three women go on vacation, the two fat women are worshipped as goddesses while the skinny one is taunted and scorned. Perhaps it's because they're vacationing on a magical island populated by Nigerian doctors who love fat black women. If this is the case why did the docs leave Nigeria in the first place? The skinny gal is assumed to be sick/dying because she weighs less than 300 pounds. Switcheroo most likely. The hunky Nigerian M.D.'s don't just appreciate Mo'Nique's ample body- they can talk of nothing else! Their idea of foreplay is over-buttering a biscuit and jamming it down her throat. This guarantees the lard will keep happening. If you consider stretch marks and fat rolls a turn-on you will love this picture.Mo'Nique eats and dates until she catches her boyfriend eating dinner with a woman who is unfat and therefore evil. She suspects her man of cheating but he assures her he would never even consider intercourse with a woman weighing less than a quarter-ton. Reassured, Mo'Nique destroys the mannequin in her hotel room and tosses her television box out the window. Perhaps this is symbolic of something. When she re-gains consciousness she is back at work where her boss Eric Roberts- in a role that counts towards his Community Service- decides to make her rich and famous for no reason whatsoever. Her clothing line- Thick Madame- sweeps the galaxy and after becoming a multi-jillionaire she goes back to Nigeria to see if her magical fat-loving gorgeous doctor boyfriend is still available.He is.The end credits come on after that, but the film was so powerful I had lost the ability to read them. Maybe it's for the best that the names of the perpetrators aren't dragged through the mud. If you're thinking of seeing "Phat Girlz," don't.GRADE: D-