It pains me to state that Judd Apatow’s “The Bubble” is easily the worst film of his career, but it is. In fact, it’s unwatchable, a film filled with annoying characters and a pandemic-era premise that just doesn’t really feel fresh or original.
“The Bubble” makes Apatow’s last film, “The King of Staten Island,” look like a masterpiece. That one had a good Pete Davidson performance at the center of its narrative. Most Apatow’s are driven by great central performances, this one doesn’t have one.
It’s Apatow’s silliest movie. A movie within a movie that recalls the hijinks of “Tropic Thunder.” This is a peculiar one for Apatow, not grounded in pertienence and straying far away from the realist comic gold of his best films, “Knocked Up” and “The 40-Year-Old-Virgin.”
It plays like a satire of Hollywood idiocy, but doesn’t seem to realize that it is the very same thing it mocks. It also clocks in at a plodding 126 minutes. Why, Judd? The critics seem to be in agreement with me. “The Bubble” has a 36 on Metacritic and is 23% rotten on RT.