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Bubble Boy

Bubble Boy

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $13.49
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Sorry couldn't laugh
Review: Usually I try and give movies the benefit of the doubt, I really do try. This one just didn't make me laugh. There are bad movies that you can watch and still like. Then there are movies that are so bad they make you want to cry. I didn't laugh at the movie I laughed at its attempts to be funny.

Overall-Think of this movie as a vampire and me as the vampire hunter. If the occasion ever arose for the oppunity for me to hunt this monster there are several things I would do

1. Drive a steak through the movie's heart(in this case represented by a vampire)
2. Cut off its head
3. Dismember the body, burn the pieces and then scatter the ashes at a crossroads so that it would do no harm to the viewing public ever again.

Bottom line Save your money

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Jake Gyllenhaal can do no wrong.
Review: Bubble Boy (Blair Hayes, 2001)

It is easily predictable in the general scheme of all things Hollywood that Blair Hayes' career will be short, nasty, brutal, and fraught with frustration. After all, you can't make a movie that transcends everything about its genre and expect to get any work in Hollywood that doesn't get thrown to you with the scraps from the tables of such conventionalists as Spielberg.

Bubble Boy, when it came out, had the look of a generic, utterly stupid Hollywood comedy, and I avoided it for that reason. I've seen enough David Spade and Jim Carrey movies to last me a lifetime, thank you. But after seeing Jake Gyllenhaal's Oscar-worthy performance in Donnie Darko, and connecting him with the lead role here, I had to go back, trepidations in hand, and watch this.

It's brilliant.

Gyllenhaal plays Jimmy Livingston, the three sttoges-esque flip side of John Travolta's Tod Lubtich (the main character of smarmy 1976 made-for-TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble). Born without normal immunities, Jimmy has been confined to a completely germ-free plastic room by his religious-nut mother (Swoosie Kurtz [Sisters], in a role I don't know how they convinced her to take) and doormat father (John Caroll Lynch of Waking the Dead and The Drew Carey Show). Jimmy has it bad for Chloe (Marley Shelton, soon to be seen in Boondock Saints: All Saints Day), but figures nothing can come of it; after all, he's in a bubble, right? She decides to marry the wrong guy, however, and Jimmy's only course of action is to hop into a portable bubble and get from Palm Springs to Niagara Falls before the wedding.

Yes, it's really that dumb, and in the hands of a stock comedy director, one would expect another Dumb and Dumber or Black Sheep. But Hayes knows his films, made risky but perfect casting decisions, added in subtle sight gags and references to everything from The Graduate to A Fistful of Dollars, and above all allowed the actors to rise above the supremely silly script to turn this into a sort of Grand Guignol version of Punch and Judy. No cow is too sacred to be eaten (or run over by a Hindu-driven ice cream van), no religion too untouchable to be trampled, no comedy convention too untouchable to be subverted. Hayes makes as much fun of the movie himself as do the critics of most badly-done comedies. Consider it a pre-emptive strike, and one of sheer genius.

There aren't enough good things to say, as well, about the actors in this movie. Gyllenhaal is a revelation, but then if you've seen Donnie Darko, you already know that. Swoosie Kurtz, ho has spent a goodly portion of her career playing the kinds of characters on finds in Lifetime Original Movies™, completely breaks with tradition and plays a psychotic nutball with an unhealthy religious streak, and does it to the hilt. The always underrated Danny Trejo shows up, and probably says more in this movie than he has in his last ten combined. Verne Troyer (aka Mini Me) displays at least ten times the talent he did in the Austin Powers movies. Etc., etc. I could go on all day.

If you avoided this one because you thought it was just another stupid comedy from Hollywood, give it another thought. It's stupid, and it's from Hollywood, but nothing about it is just another anything. ****

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I thought this movie was gonna be stupid
Review: The commercial for this movie makes it look like the line of slapstick and in my opinion mindless movies that have been made over the past years "dumb and dumber" (and for the new one thats about to come out, as if one wasnt enough), road trip, i think you know what movies im talking about, though i must say i thought corky romano was absolutly hilarious so im not without a sense of humor. i just prefer the comedies from the mid ninetys like dazed and confused, the stoned age, and empire records.
so i didnt want to see this movie. i never planned on it, i didnt even try to. i was just sitting at home watching wam and i ran to get a coke and when i came back it was playing so i was watching it and realised what it was but i had that quickly already gotten into it. the movie is hilarious. you got jimmy whos mother has sheltered him all his life until highschool. everything that hes heard its been from his mother. then one day the girl next door who he loves to watch from his bubble window comes over and he says "your the whore from next door" (what his mother had called her but he didnt realise what that was because she didnt want him knowing about anything that she wanted him to grow up sheltered. so now he has a friend. well, they remain best friends and secret crushes all the way through highschool until one day she comes to him and tells him that shes getting married. now jimmy must chase her down and stop the wedding and tell her that he loves her before its too late on a road trip that brings more than he bargained for in his clear plastic bubble with a decontamination pocket.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Surprisingly hilarious
Review: When I saw the previews of this movie, it looked completely stupid. Based on the whole premise I had no intentions of ever seeing it as it looked so dumb and I promptly forgot about it. I recently saw Donnie Darko and Moonlight Mile, both of which I really enjoyed and soon after discovered Jake Gyllenhaal (who did an excellent job in those 2 movies) starred in Bubble Boy. I was kind of surprised by this, as I remembered how ridulously bad Bubble Boy looked. But my curiosity got the better of me so I finally broke down and watched it. I was expecting very little of the movie. I was expecting it to confirm my suspicions that the movie would be horribly unfunny. But to my surprise, I loved it!

Bubble Boy is entertaining throughout and downright hilarious in several spots. I'd best describe it as a mix between Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Dude Where's My Car. The events that happen are completely outrageous but thoroughly funny. Some of the things are pure genius. The ending is extremely predictable but that doesn't take anything away from it as whole. There are just so many good parts its hard to pick a favorite. I just watched this last night and I'm already eager to view it again.

This movie is a perfect example of the old saying that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, or put too much faith in critic's reviews. Critics generally give these type of comedies bad reviews, I think mostly because if they actually admitted they liked them they'd be ridiculed by the rest of the snobby critics. This movie is definitely worth watching at least once, if not repeatedly.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Definition of a Romantic Comedy
Review: Bubble Boy is an outstanding movie that is not to be missed. It will make you laugh and it will make you cry. It explores the dedication of one man's love for a woman who is just out of reach, and how he fights to get her back. The trip there however, isn't too easy. There are obstacles, including his bubble suit, that are very discouraging. However, because of his undying love, Jimmy doesn't let his differences get in the way of his true feelings. A very cute movie, great chick flick!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Bubble bubble, the viewer's in trouble
Review: BUBBLE BOY is another one of those movies in which the film makers try and turn someone's medical condition into a laugh fest. The only problem with BUBBLE BOY is despite some gross out humor, its not very funny.
Jimmy (played by DONNIE DARKO's Jake Gyllenhaal) has a rare medical condition in which the slightest exposure to germs can kill him, so he has lived his entire life in a plastic bubble, with his overprotective mother (Swoosie Kurtz) monitoring his every move. The other neighbourhood kids think he is a freak, but this arouses the curiosities Jimmy's neighbour Chloe (Marley Shelton) and she decides to try and get to know him better. Jimmy is thrilled with this attention and pretty soon he is smitten with her. But one day Chloe drops the bombshell that she is going to get married to a hypocritical scumbag and Jimmy must somehow get to Niagra Falls in several days to stop the wedding. How does he do this? By building a mobile bubble suit and setting off on a cross county road trip on his scooter. (Here the viewer suspends his disbelief).
BUBBLE BOY is a movie loaded with unfunny stereotypes. Fabio has a cameo as the leader of an idiotic cult in which all the members are named Todd. These whackos believe Jimmy is their key to heaven. Verne Troyer (better known as Mini-Me) plays Dr Phreak, the evil head honcho of a travelling freak show. There's also a memorable gag involving the gory destruction of a cow's carcass. This last comment is also ironic as hair metal band WASP also have a brief cameo.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: No Sacred Cows
Review: Well, there was one...but it got creamed by a semi! HILARIOUS movie. And watch at the end for the wink and nod tribute to "The Graduate". Highly recommended.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Oh, my.
Review: So incredibly bad it's BAD. This movie has to fall into the catagory of 'A dog with no legs or tail.' My wife has a crush on Jake Gyllenhaal is my only defense for sitting through the whole thing which was hard enough due to the fact that the film acctually produces anti-laughter. The 1 star is for a flick actually having a character named "Dr. Phreak."

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: horrible
Review: Bubble Boy was the most pathetic movie ever. How anyone enjoyed it is beyond me. In the movie, A boy named Jimmy has disease in which he can't touch any germs, so they put him in a bubble. When the girl he loves moves to get married in Ney York, he makes his bubble portable and goes to New York to stop the wedding.As if the plot of the story isn't dumb enough, bad acting and pitiful directing make this movie a total disaster. Never see this movie in your life time, for you will be overcome with boredom.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Who in their right mind approves producing movies like this?
Review: Who comes up with premises like this?

Okay, so there's this boy who spends his whole teenage life in a plastic bubble being taken care of by his crazy mother, and then the boy falls in love with the girl next door but she runs off to get married with a punk and boy-in-bubble must start off across country (talk about hi jinks) to break up wedding and learn something about himself while being attacked by a vulture (NYA!).

Someone presumably pitched this premise to some Hollywood producer guys and, god love 'em, the bizarre thinking of the Hollywood producer guys concluded the thumbs up would be in order. This is a fantastic movie. Forget the stuff about being inspired, this is just a dang funny movie. See it in the wrong mood and it'll be dumb. See it in the right mood and you'll love the hi jinks. Plus, my man, Jake Gyllenhaal has got great hair throughout.

Note: The vulture in the movie looks like a Cape vulture, i.e. occurring in Africa not in the SW of the USA. We'll recognize this lapse in filmmaking/natural history coordination, but choose not to take away any stars.


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