“At least we tried to make a movie, they can’t judge us for that,” a character says at the end of writer-director Judd Apatow’s newest comedy for Netflix. “We made something that’s a distraction in these difficult times.” I can only assume these words are a not-so-subtle effort to short circuit critiques — we’re grading on effort these days, are we? — from anyone puzzled by “The Bubble” and its halfhearted attempts to satirize Hollywood egos and moviemaking in the Age of COVID-19.
The cast and crew of a “Jurassic”-like action franchise called “Cliff Beasts” have assembled mid-pandemic — first for a luxurious two-week quarantine, then for several months of filming inside “the bubble” (no one goes in or out for the duration) — at a lavish estate-turned-hotel in the English countryside. From the word go, chaos reigns.
“The Bubble” hearkens back to similar skewerings of Hollywood, from 1999′s “Galaxy Quest” to 2008′s “Tropic Thunder,” but doesn’t bring anything new or especially satisfying to the genre, going for gently absurd rather than truly savage in its ridicule of the rich and famous. The self-involved actors are played by Karen Gillan, Keegan-Michael Key and Pedro Pascal, among others; Fred Armisen is the hapless director and also the closest thing to a sympathetic character (which is worthy of a few laughs if only because it reveals a lot about how Apatow sees himself).
