By: Andrew Wing

The Bubble is a 2022 American comedy film directed by Judd Apatow from a screenplay co-written with Pam Brady (best known for her work on South Park). The film features an ensemble cast that includes Karen Gillan (Marvel Cinematic Universe films, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), Iris Apatow (Knocked Up, This Is 40), Fred Armisen (Portlandia, Saturday Night Live), Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), David Duchovny (The X-Files, Californication), Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele, The Prom), Leslie Mann (Apatow’s wife, This Is 40, Blockers), Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live, The Spy Who Dumped Me), Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian, Wonder Woman 1984), Guz Khan (Man Like Mobeen), and Peter Serafinowicz (Shaun of the Dead, The Tick).

The film’s plot takes place in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and follows the cast and crew of a blockbuster action franchise, Cliff Beasts, as they attempt to shoot a sequel while quarantined at a posh English hotel.

The Bubble was released on April 1, 2022, by Netflix.

THE GOOD

When I first saw the trailer for The Bubble, I was pumped. I mean it was coming straight to Netflix and it was from director Judd Apatow. If you haven’t been living under a rock for the entire 21st century, then you would know that Judd Apatow has been killing it. From The 40-Year-Old Virgin, to Knocked Up, to Trainwreck, Apatow has been responsible for some of the best comedies we have ever seen. Add in the fact that his most recent film, The King of Staten Island, starring Pete Davidson that came out in 2020 was freaking amazing, and I had every reason to think The Bubble would be a solid comedy. But was it? Keep reading to find out!

Spoiler alert. It was not. Trust me when I say that I will address the many things I did not like about this film later on in the review, but let’s start on a positive note. There’s no denying that this film has a stacked cast, and while they don’t all give great performances, there still were a couple. First with Karen Gillan as she is kind of the main character of the story. I really like Gillan and I obviously love her as Nebula in the MCU, but this makes two straight years where she has given good performances in Netflix films following last year’s Gunpowder Milkshake (see my full review here). She is really starting to show how skilled she is as an actress and I cannot wait to watch her double role in the upcoming sci-fi thriller film Dual (see our preview here).

Gillan was definitely the best in my opinion, but a close second would have to be Maria Bakalova. Bakalova became a star in 2020 after starring in the hilarious sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. She was so good in that, and the fact that she went blow for blow in a comedy alongside the legendary Sacha Baron Cohen showed her capabilities. Well, she put them on display again here, and she was easily the one responsible for the majority of my laughs here. The only other actor I thought gave a good performance here was David Duchovny. I know he’s a big name thanks to starring in The X-Files, but since I’ve never seen an episode of that, I’m not too familiar with him as an actor. However, I’ll definitely be watching more of him in the future because he’s good at his job. He just played his character perfectly here as the arrogant workaholic and he was one of the only bright spots of this film.

In closing, because there really isn’t a lot of good to say when it comes to The Bubble, I will say it made me chuckle a couple of times. I certainly didn’t laugh as much as I had hoped once I pressed play, but there were some pretty funny moments. Unfortunately though, the majority of them came from Bakalova’s character who didn’t get nearly enough screen time, or they came in the form of cameos from other big names who were only on screen for a minute maybe. We had Benedict Cumberbatch as himself in what was a very weird scene, Daisy Ridley as an exercise AI, John Cena as a stunt coordinator, and lastly, my personal favorite, James McAvoy as himself. At the end of the day, it probably isn’t a good sign when a viewer’s favorite moments don’t even come from the main cast members, but I just enjoyed them a lot and they potentially saved this film from getting goose egged.

THE BAD

I won’t lie, this movie sucked. You’ll see when I give my score, but I didn’t think it was possible for there to be a movie I’d watch this year worse than Home Team (see my full review here), but boy was I wrong. I realized very quickly that this movie had no idea what it wanted to be and that is really the worst thing when it comes to a movie. To reference Home Team again, at least that knew what it wanted to be, and I can at least have a little bit of respect for that, but this I have no respect for whatsoever. I just cannot fathom what Judd Apatow did here. Like this is such a massive s**t stain on what was almost a near-perfect resume. He is a legend of the comedy genre, and some might even call him the GOAT with how many phenomenal films he’s made, but I don’t know, in what world did he think this movie was okay?

Next, let’s address the performances of the other members of the cast. As I already mentioned, this cast was stacked and I was intrigued by it. They weren’t all terrible, but some are just incredibly bad. I mean we got Fred Armisen, Keegan-Michael Key, Kate McKinnon, and many many more, and they all gave career-worst performances from them without a doubt in my mind. It was truly so disappointing, and I hope whatever these guys do next is better than this because if it isn’t, they might have a hard time getting future phone calls for projects.

Another thing that stunk about this movie was the fact that it was way too long. Over two hours? Are you kidding me? The perfect comedy is around the 90-105 minute range in my eyes and this one was just so bad I couldn’t wait for it to be over, and they couldn’t even do me that service of ending it faster. In conclusion, this movie has zero re-watch ability and the worst part of it was that it just was not funny. I don’t even think a younger version of myself would’ve thought this was funny, and that is saying a lot.

THE VERDICT

With the film’s self-awareness absolutely nowhere to be found, The Bubble is a very tough watch and it’s a massive flop from director Judd Apatow. Sure, Karen Gillan and Maria Bakalova both gave good performances, but as good as they were, the many more bad performances from other legends of modern comedy gave this film no chance.

I mean the purpose of me writing these reviews is obviously to get y’all to check them out, but this might not be worth your time, because it was certainly a waste of mine. I’m still going to suggest checking it out just so you can experience it for yourself. The good news is that it’s a free movie with it being a Netflix original so go ahead and give it a chance and please share your thoughts with me!