La burbuja

Watched this film at Paris theater in NYC aka the Netflix Theater. Without spoiling much, I will just that this film is not very funny. Contrary, it's long, it's got too many characters, the storyline is very vague and confusing, and the jokes are not there. Judd Apatow was bragging about finishing the script in 8 weeks, and honestly it really felt so.

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!

Not with the movie. Perfectly straightforward silly spoofy comedy. A tidge long in the middle, and probably could have been tightened up. Fred Armisen is a bit too much a skit-level character, who doesn't fully work. But otherwise just fine to rather good.

What I don't get is the abject hatred for it. I mean, almost a third of ratings on (one service) are 1, 2, or 3? That's... not a thing. Even for really, really bad dumb comedies, they don't get this low a rating.

I presume there's something like people who hate that this as one of the few projects to admit COVID exists driving it down? Not sure. But I am judgemental and hate lots of movies, this is just not that atrocious at all.

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.

A group of so-so actors who have made the dinosaur franchise 'Cliff Beasts' come to a lavish English hotel to make the sixth mostly green screen instalment whilst locked down from COVID. The studio take extreme steps to keep them filming come what may whilst the cast go slowly mad.

Whilst there is much to dislike here - lots of characteristic Apatow shouting and waffling interminable rubbish that means nothing, I kinda liked this. It's a good cast with stand out comic performances for me by David Duchovny, Pedro Pascal and the ever wonderful Peter Serafinowicz. In addition if you listen and watch carefully enough there are some scenes and off the cuff remarks that lean more towards the biting satire on actors, current film audiences and Hollywood that this needed to be and at those times this is genuinely funny. You need to be tolerant around the piles of rubbish, but in the right mood this is a sweet and quite fun movie.