Earlier this month Netflix rubbed shoulders with the Hollywood elite when its movie The Power of the Dog competed at the Oscars. It’s fair to say that its latest tentpole probably won’t be competing for an Academy Award this time next year, as it’s getting trashed by critics.
The Bubble is a new film from Judd Apatow, and while the premise seems pretty novel, it's apparently a lot more fun on paper than in practice. The comedy film has earned a woeful 24% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. With the score dropping even lower to an abysmal 20% if you filter by Top Critics.
Typically audiences are much kinder to movies than critics, but even The Bubble’s audience score is sitting at a rather subpar 43%. It’s fair to say that the few Netflix subscribers who have already found the time to watch the newly released film weren’t particularly impressed either.
What makes The Bubble’s reception so disappointing is that its premise sounded ideal for farcical comedy. It follows the cast of a blockbuster action franchise as they attempt to shoot the sixth instalment while stuck in quarantine at a posh English hotel. It also stars plenty of proven comedic talent including Leslie Mann, Fred Armisen, Kate McKinnon and Keegan-Michael Key, as well as the excellent actors such as Karen Gillan and Pedro Pascal.
It all sounds like a recipe for an outrageously good time, but it appears The Bubble misses the mark by some margin. The movie's run time of more than two hours has drawn heavy criticism, with The Hollywood Reporter labelling it a “slapdash comedy with an embarrassment of misused talent.”
Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph goes as further and says “in the pantheon of celebrities’ pandemic projects, The Bubble is an unbearable new low” and suggests that Gal Gadot’s infamous Imagine video was more entertaining. Ouch.
Of course, opinions are subjective, so if you think The Bubble looks like something you’d really enjoy, then it might still be worth your time. Of course, it’s unlikely to crack any lists of the best Netflix movies anytime soon, and frankly we’d probably recommend sticking to watching any of these Netflix movies and shows set to leave the service in April instead.
