Critic Reviews

There is semi-purpose and not insignificant pleasure to be had in Apatow’s experiment. The Netflix production isn’t the comedy kingmaker’s best film by a wide margin (though it is his shortest, which still isn’t saying much), but it works in spite of itself.

The film is best in its embrace of the random, its moments when the talented and funny cast goof off with each other, responding to one another's eccentricities.

An overabundance of celebrity cameos and some incoherence aside, The Bubble succeeds because it is just so damn fun. Even with a departure from Apatow’s more muted direction there is an abundance of laughs.

Judd Apatow’s broadest film yet is a patchy collection of Covid-themed comedy cock-ups — but a talented ensemble of performers means you’re never too far away from your next laugh.

The film — an ensemble feature whose premise rests on the challenges of shooting an aggressively bad action movie in the middle of a pandemic — succeeds in being funny.

While attempting to highlight the inconsequential nature of “rich people problems,” the film isn’t incisive or clever enough to parody the very cinematic sensation it’s unintentionally playing into.

Even if the characters on screen didn’t become better artists during the pandemic, then Apatow at least should have. With The Bubble, he seems to have mistaken jokes about moviemaking for moviemaking that shouldn’t be taken seriously.

The Bubble is ultimately a mediocre movie about the making of an even worse movie.

The Bubble feels like the least personal film Apatow has directed so far, a film that seems like more of an excuse to just do something during the pandemic, instead of Apatow having something to say.

The Bubble (which Apatow co-wrote with Pam Brady) is a sort of good bad movie, in which the aesthetic falls flat but the personal motive, the emotional core, is authentic, pugnacious, derisive.