The Bubble

Judd Apatow, he of The King of Staten Island, Knocked Up, The 40 Year-Old Virgin etc, has made the leap to Netflix with his new movie, The Bubble.

An all star cast sees Karen Gillan (“Gunpowder Milkshake”, “Avengers: Endgame”), Pedro Pascal (“Wonder Woman 1984”, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle”), Leslie Mann (“Motherless Brooklyn”, “Welcome to Marwen”), David Duchovny (“The X Files (TV)”, “Californication (TV)”), Keegan-Michael Key (“Dolemite Is My Name”, “Toy Story 4”), Guz Khan (“Our Flag Means Death (TV)”, “Army of Thieves”), and Iris Apatow (“Love (TV)”, “Sausage Party”) all together trying to complete the movie, Cliff Beasts 6.

However, when the pandemic hits the team are forced to retreat to a hotel in England, spending two weeks in quarantine initially, before finally starting to shoot the movie.

Gillan is the actress who stepped out of Cliff Beasts 5 and the rest of the cast aren’t happy with her for that. Pascal is the womanising, drug-taker, Mann is Duchovny’s ex-wife whilst Duchovny thinks he’s both the producer and writer on the movie (he’s neither).

Key is the ‘lifestyle guru’ who definitely hasn’t started a cult, Khan is constantly bored and wants his weed whilst Iris is there purely because she has millions of followers on social media but hasn’t ever seen the movies.

This mish-mash group are thrust together with a director, Fred Armisen (“Our Flag Means Death (TV)”, “Spin Me Round”), who shot his last, and first, movie on an iPhone and a producer, Peter Serafinowicz (“The Tick (TV)”, “Last Christmas”), who is basically being blackmailed by studio head Kate McKinnon (“Joe vs. Carole (TV)”, “Yesterday”), for something he did many years ago.

As the movie drags on and on, Gillan wants out, the rest of the cast aren’t on board at first and she feels like she’s going crazy. As things go on though, the crew realise they are basically being kept captive at the hotel with severe security being introduced too.

Will the gang ever get out? Will the movie ever get finished? Will Pascal ever get his rocks off? Will Duchovny ever get any of his rewrites into the movie?

Coming in at a little over two-hours the first thing to say about The Bubble is it too long, it begins to drag. There are plenty of laughs throughout, but equally there are bits that could have quite easily been left out and scenes that felt over indulgent.

That said, The Bubble is a laugh, it’s always good to see actors sending themselves, and the industry, up and Aptow, Judd that is, does it so well. You also get the impression there are a lot of ‘in jokes’ too, ones that will perhaps be funnier if you’ve ever had to deal with a director or producer, for us mere mortals we’ll just have to imagine.