Post by StevePulaski on Jan 3, 2014 1:00:11 GMT -5
Bubble Boy (2001)
Directed by: Blair Hayes
Directed by: Blair Hayes
Jake Gyllenhaal accompanied by a monstrous bubble in Bubble Boy.
Rating: ★½
Just keep me away from comedies released in 2001. The same year such bold franchises as Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings began we were fed indigestible trash such as The Animal, Black Knight, Corky Romano, Freddy Got Fingered, Joe Dirt, and, now, Bubble Boy. Gazing through the filmography of 2001, I think I've covered many of the bad comedies of that year, albeit a few honorable mentions such as Tomcats and Zoolander. I think after the aforementioned titles, however, I need a good cleansing.
Bubble Boy is based off of the 1976 TV-movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, starring John Travolta and Robert Reed, which potentially offered a sympathetic look at the idea of a person possessing a poor immune system, meaning any encounter with a germ or a foreign substance of the body could be potentially fatal. However, in Blair Hayes' Bubble Boy, the material is effectively cheapened into a low-rent comedy about, of course, the same premise, except taken in an extreme case where Christian-Conservative parents keep their immunodeficient son locked away in a bubble in his room for a good twenty years. Inevitably, despite the mother's incessant converting and brainwashing, Jimmy Livingston (Jake Gyllenhaal) notices that a dashing young blonde named Chloe (Marley Shelton) has just moved in next door but his mother will have none of it.
Jimmy and Chloe begin hang out in secrecy, with her coming up through his window on a daily basis to hang out, watch Land of the Lost (the only show Jimmy is allowed to watch), and just have a good time with each other. The suspension of disbelief that is necessary to believe a privileged, gorgeous blonde would give this amiable but sheltered boy any time of day is beyond my mental-capability, but I digress. Eventually, she finds some punk-rock buffoon she falls in love with and decides to pack up and leave for Niagara Falls to get married. Jimmy, already burdened by the inability to leave his bubble, decides to detach himself and travel to Niagara Falls to stop Chloe before she says "I do." Except, you know, he's kind of in a bubble, so there's difficulty in that.
The film follows the basic but oh-so monotonous formula of staging a comedic scene that mainly emphasizes how difficult or obtrusive life on the outside for sheltered Jimmy is because of his annoying bubble followed by a montage set to generic nineties rock and roll. The Jimmy character, who looks like a black-haired version of Stephen Baldwin's character from Bio-Dome, is also given a kiddish accent to go along with his sheltered personality, in an efforts to make an inherently innocent character all the more intolerable. I couldn't figure out what was more incredulous in the long run - the fact that Chloe sees something in Jimmy or that Jimmy manages to get bounced around enough in this film that he doesn't ever pop.
Bubble Boy falls into an onslaught of road movie cliches, with director Hayes and the writing duo Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio constantly trying to concoct the most cockamamie scenario possible. Would you believe Jimmy gets thrown into the clutches of a ruthless cult led by popular model Fabio, put under the wing of a fearless biker played by Danny Trejo, lead through a circus of freaks run by Verne Troyer, and befriended by the most stereotypical Indian character American cinema has ever seen (his name is "Pushpop" for Christ's sake)?
The issue with Bubble Boy is the same issue with many of the Adam Sandler films, for it gives us a ridiculous character that is difficult to side with in an implausible circumstance with many jokes falling flat and tacking on an ending which just seems borderline unacceptable in the long run. This is sad because Gyllenhaal is a terrible thing to waste and the filmmakers here found many ways to do just that.
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Marley Shelton, Danny Trejo, Verne Troyer, Fabio, and Brian George. Directed by: Blair Hayes.