"Life is an adventure. Don't blow it."

      Movies are hard to make and need to be done with care and effort, and all experienced filmmakers know generally how to do it and how not to blow it. After somehow getting the job to direct Bubble Boy, first-time filmmaker Blair Hayes apparently watched all of the comedies of the late nineties for inspiration, and unfortunately, blew it. She made another bizarre, below average comedy (to join the growing heap of this decade) that had more air in its script than our hero had in his bubble.

      Jimmy (Jake Gyllenhaal, October Sky) is the title character and said hero, and as his mother told him, he came "gift-wrapped from Heaven." In truth, he was born without immunities and must live in an airtight bubble in his house for his entire life in order to survive. When a beautiful girl, Chloe (Marley Shelton, Sugar & Spice), moves in next door, Jimmy watches her through his bedroom window and falls in love. The two become friends, but when she gets a boyfriend and eventually gets engaged, Jimmy's heart is broken. She leaves for Niagara Falls to get married, and Jimmy builds a portable bubble suit and to venture out into the world for the first time to travel across America to stop the wedding.

      It's yet another amusing premise, but when the actual script was written, things like believability and creativity were traded in for crude and stale humor -- which is what, in fact, plagues most unremarkable comedies like Bubble Boy. Writers can't seem to build on their own good ideas, but rather, follow the lead of other bad comedies and present the viewer with gross-out jokes and zany (sometimes ludicrous) situations. Since Jimmy has never left his house, the creative door should have been wide open for many humorous scenes, but the story still falls short. At times, the writers even resort to sexual humor (when Jimmy gets aroused after seeing Chloe for the first time) and gross-out animal jokes (when a cow gets hit by a Hindu ice cream tuck driver). Most of these jokes are unnecessary and are barely cause to crack a smile.

      Most of the smiles, instead, come from the performance of Jake Gyllenhaal, who last gave an impressive lead performance in 1999's October Sky. His maturity, however, seems to have dropped by accepting this role. He plays Jimmy well, but even looking at his ridiculous hair-do, you have to wonder how he was convinced to be in such a silly attempt at a romantic comedy. His costar and leading lady, Marley Shelton, is very pretty and convincing as Jimmy's inspiration for his cross-country journry, but she too plays along with the movie's goofiness and doesn't do much to make it more mature -- though that shouldn't be expected from the same lead actress of Sugar & Spice.

      Bubble Boy's lack of maturity may have had something do to with the lack of experience behind the camera, but it's probably mostly due to how the studio wanted it to be made. They threw in enough circus freak, slapstick, and sexual "humor" to make it what audiences supposedly want. It obviously doesn't work for the more mature demographic, and it will probably even be offensive to some, but expect 12-year-olds everywhere to be snickering about how Jimmy's mother makes him say the Pledge of Allegiance every time he gets aroused.

      Even, after all this, you're still in the mood for a bizarre, silly comedy, don't let Bubble Boy burst your bubble.

Andy Zientek, 2001