The Bubble review: A dreadful pandemic dud from Judd Apatow

For Apatow, who has produced and directed many of the most successful studio comedies this side of the Millennium, this dreadful pandemic-themed film is the inarguable low point of his career – and one of the worst films of 2022 so far.

The Bubble's premise is that Cliff Beasts 6 – the latest instalment of the "23rd biggest action franchise of all time" – is starting production at an opulent English hotel, where due to the ongoing pandemic the various cast members must bubble up for the duration of the shoot.

The cast for the fictional film is led by Carol Cobb (Karen Gillan) a glamorous A-lister fresh from a disastrous turn in a critically-panned film called Jerusalem Rising, in which she played a half-Israeli, half Palestinian woman – despite the fact that she herself is a white American.

Early on, we learn that Cobb had sat out the last Cliff Beasts film, but has been persuaded to return to the franchise by her agent (Rob Delaney) in a desperate bid to rescue her plummeting reputation.

Her co-stars for the project include diva Lauren Van Chance (Leslie Mann) and her on-again, off-again partner Dustin (David Duchovny), comic actor Howie Frangopolous (Guz Khan), and renowned stunt performer Sean Knox (Keegan-Michael Key), as well as a couple of newcomers to the franchise: TikTok icon Krystal Kris (Iris Apatow) and 'serious actor' Dieter Bravo (Pedro Pascal).

This varied crop of actors are directed by the apparently visionary filmmaker Darren Eigan (Fred Armisen) and attended to by a number of hotel staff, who range from the obsequious to the relatively unbothered.

As is to be expected from Apatow, a fine cast of comic performers has been assembled for the picture, and yet despite their presence the film musters barely a single laugh throughout its painfully bloated runtime, which seems to drag on almost as long as the disastrous shoot being depicted – with just as little momentum or direction.

Most of the humour is ridiculously broad and awkwardly delivered, whether it be jokes about generational gaps, or cults, or cocaine binges, or the upstairs-downstairs nature of the relationship between the actors and hotel staff.

And that's not even mentioning the glut of laboured pandemic material that would have already felt tired in late 2020, or the excruciating TikTok dance sequences that interrupt the action on more than one occasion, or the inexplicable big-name cameos (including one particularly dire scene featuring Daisy Ridley).

Every now and again, there are a couple of decent gags sprinkled in – a fair few of which come from the actors playing the dinosaur characters in Cliff Beasts 6 – but not nearly enough to save an otherwise totally lacklustre script.

As the film progresses, and the cast and crew become increasingly impatient about the regular threats to production, an assortment of competing plot strands emerge, although none of them can truly be said to be winning.

One of them sees the arrival of a new head of security with particularly hardline methods (leading to a bizarre moment of body horror featuring Leslie Mann's character), another sees Carol Cobb strike up a brief affair with a Real Betis footballer as she deals with issues in her long-distance relationship, and the worst of all sees Pedro Pascal's character desperately attempt to find someone, anyone, to sleep with him.

The Bubble is not the first star-studded film to tackle COVID and the resulting lockdowns in an irreverent manner – Doug Liman's Locked Down, starring Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, took a similarly comedic approach to the subject matter last year, also without much success. But at least that film had the excuse of being rushed out in order to feel immediate and relevant – this one can't even be let off the hook on those grounds.

In the film's final scene, just before the closing credits roll, one character muses: "The whole rest of the movie can be s**t, as long as the ending is good, 'cause that's what they'll remember, y'know?" Alas, The Bubble couldn't even get that much right.

The Bubble is streaming on Netflix from Friday 1st April 2022. If you’re looking for something else to watch, check out our TV Guide or visit our Movies hub for all the latest news.

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