A Bolha

Don't get me wrong, I love a good joke. I just don't love the same joke being repeated over and over for two hours. There's plenty to mock over the past couple of years and I applaud this movie for having a go but it would've been much better if someone who actually understood comedy had written this, like Ricky Gervais or the Monty python crowd. But no. In typical Netflix fashion we get a corporate confection of mediocrity.

Seeing the stars in this and the writer/director it came from, I'm honestly stunned at how bad this was. The Bubble is an extremely tedious watch that has almost no genuine comedy in it. About an hour in, I realized the film must be close to over, but nope. There was over an hour more of the same jokes and same setting left to suffer through. It tries to be self-aware, however the ultimate irony is Judd Apatow casting his wife and daughter in this film while simultaneously trying to lambast how ridiculous Hollywood is.

A mixed-bag Hollywood comedy, suffering from the usual complaint which is that all the best scenes are in the trailer. This one offers a broad satire of filmmaking in the COVID era, with a lot of lockdowns, bubbles and hygiene-following. A sprawling ensemble cast are efficient in their roles, some funnier than others, but sadly the wit tends to be bypassed in favour of dumber sex or vomit gags. I did enjoy the dancing scenes and the CGI jokes, however.

Premise had a lot of potential. The cast are talented. The film is just not very good. It's poorly paced and the gags are flat. Could've been great with a rewrite that included actual jokes and slicker dialogue.

Not a good film by any measure.

Alright, let me break your bubble here.. I usually enjoy Judd Apatow's low-brow comedies, but this one reminds us of everything we hated about the early stages of the pandemic with added celebrity commentary. The humor didn't land for me most of the time, and even with a spectacular cast, the film never hits the highs you expect. It just gets by with a meandering screenplay that neither engages nor makes us root for any of its whiny, privileged characters. Well, Apatow's trying otherwise - he wants us to laugh at (and not with) everyone in the film industry dominated by corporate giants and larger-than-life characters. The pandemic was a bad phase, and no films needed to be made around that subject. Some fleeting flourishes aside (mostly from Pedro Pascal and a few cameos), The Bubble is honestly a letdown!