Following the critical and box office failure of her vehicle, Jerusalem Uprising, Carol Cobb (Karen Gillan) returns to the dinosaur action franchise Cliff Beasts for the sixth installment. Due to the COVD pandemic production is set up in a "bubble" in England where Carol and the other actors will live together to prevent any infections. As producer Gavin (Peter Serafinowicz) impotently tries to rein in negative publicity, on set tensions, and vices of the cast, the initially planned three month shoot gets extended again and again.
Cliff Beasts is the latest film from director Judd Apatow who also writes the film alongside Pam Brady best known for her work with South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker on the first three seasons of South Park, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut, as well as Team America: World Police. The COVD pandemic has inspired a number of films attempting to capitalize on the pandemic ranging from Steven Soderbergh's surprisingly good Kimi, to slapdash productions like Songbird and Locked, and bottom of the barrel schlock like Corona: Fear is a Virus or The Covid Killer, however comedies have yet to tap into the genre save for outliers like NBC's short lived Connected or Freeform's Love in the Time of Corona both of which didn't particularly resonate with audiences. I think because of the nature of the pandemic it's been difficult to put any sort of comedic spin on the material especially in regards to the real world insanity and stupidity that doesn't lend itself all that well to exaggeration. With a strong cast of comedians and noted creative forces behind the camera The Bubble is possibly the biggest COVD film we've seen yet and has the makings of something truly insightful, but at a little over two hours long and filled with abrasive characters The Bubble has some moments of humor but as a whole doesn't come together.
Like other comedies that have attempted to approach the COVD pandemic, Apatow runs into the issue of having to create comic chaos in a place where everything is very controlled and structured and that rigidity ends up working against the talents of the cast as there's long sequences where they're forced to be by themselves or maybe with one other person and we really don't get the best environment for creating comic friction. Karen Gillan is our lead Carol Cobb and she's a fine actress with a strong repertoire of work, but her main gimmick is basically just taking very casual abuse from the cast, crew, and even her boyfriend who dumps her over video conferencing and continues to live in her house with a random waitress. The worst thing you can do in a comedy is make us feel sorry for the characters and that's what happens as we for the most part as we watch relationships deteriorate and egos clash and you feel like you're trapped with these people with no escape. Eventually when the movie becomes a bonkers "escape" film in the final 20 minutes it becomes a little funnier and gets more energy, but after two hours it's too little too late and it doesn't make up for all the floundering gags and dead spots littered throughout the move. Even the Cliff Beasts sequences which parody the Jurassic World films (even down to using similar font) aren't all that funny or engaging and it doesn't feel like Apatow's approach to this kind of satire has evolved since 2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshall where he took a similar approach to cookie cutter crime procedurals with Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime. The Cliff Beasts segments aren't silly enough to be all that funny and they also never feel like a true approximation of the box office crap The Bubble is poking fun at, and frankly when you have serious blockbusters like Moonfall that are far more insane and funnier than anything in The Bubble it undercuts whatever satire might've been attempted.
The Bubble is unfortunately not up to the standards of its talented cast and crew. While there are brief bits of comic insanity sprinkled throughout, they're undone by an overly long runtime and the restrictive nature of the premise so the movie never really fires off. Maybe if this had been framed as a mockumentary it could've used the awkwardness and isolation more effectively, in fact the documentary film within a film Beasts of the Bubble looks like a much more entertaining film by comparison. Some good moments, but not enough for me to recommend it.
