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Movies / On DVD / Bubble Boy
Bubble Boy

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Bubble Boy (2001)

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Reviews Counted:18

Fresh:5

Rotten:13

Average Rating:3.9/10

Consensus: Bubble Boy bounces along with lame, offensive jokes that are more tasteless than funny.

Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for language and crude sexual humor

Runtime: 84 mins

Genre: Comedies

Theatrical Release:Aug 24, 2001 Wide

Box Office: $4,211,321

Synopsis: BUBBLE BOY is a zany and lighthearted but irreverent road comedy from music video director Blair Hayes. Jake Gyllenhaal (OCTOBER SKY) stars as Jimmy Livingston, a young man born with an immune... BUBBLE BOY is a zany and lighthearted but irreverent road comedy from music video director Blair Hayes. Jake Gyllenhaal (OCTOBER SKY) stars as Jimmy Livingston, a young man born with an immune deficiency, who is forced to spend his life inside a sterile plastic bubble. His overprotective, fanatical right-wing Christian mother (Swoosie Kurtz) doesn't let him have friends, and the only TV show she lets him watch is LAND OF THE LOST. The pretty girl next door, Chloe (Marley Shelton) visits him, and the two become friends. Because they can't touch each other through his bubble, they keep their passions in check, but when Chloe goes to Niagara Falls to marry her creepy boyfriend, Jimmy builds a portable bubble and leaves home for the first time to stop her. BUBBLE BOY may offend some with its jokes involving religion and sex and physical deformity, but it's clear that the filmmakers push the envelope, not simply to shock, but to make cogent points about tolerance. The film features surprisingly strong and funny supporting performances from Vern Troyer (Mini-Me from AUSTIN POWERS) and Fabio. In the lead role, Gyllenhaal projects such genuine wide-eyed sweetness that it's impossible not to root for him. [More]

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Marley Shelton, Swoosie Kurtz, Geoffrey Arend

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Marley Shelton, Swoosie Kurtz, Geoffrey Arend, Beetlejuice, Betty Blowtorch, John Carroll Lynch, Dave Sheridan, Stephen Spinella, Danny Trejo, Verne Troyer, Stacy Keibler

Director: Blair Hayes

Director: Blair Hayes
Screenwriter: Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio
Studio: Touchstone Pictures

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Release:

Jan 15, 2002

[DVD Details]
 
 
  • Bubble Boy
  • From the producer of the outrageous AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME, BUBBLE BOY is the hilarious, laugh-out-loud comedy about a sheltered young man (Jake Gyllenhaal -- OCTOBER SKY) who breaks all the rules on a wild adventure to get the girl of his dreams! Though he's lived his entire life within the confines of a protective plastic bubble and under the ever-watchful eye of his overprotective mother (Swoosie Kurtz -- GET OVER IT), Jimmy Livingston (Gyllenhaal) never thought that he'd missed out on anything, until the girl next door (Marley Shelton -- VALENTINE, SUGAR & SPICE) ran off to get married in Niagara Falls. With the wedding only days away, Jimmy has no choice but to build a mobile "bubble suit" and set off across the country to stop the wedding and confess his love to her!
  • Source: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
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    Reviews for Bubble Boy

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    1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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    N/R

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    Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
    03/27/09
    Todd McCarthy
    Todd McCarthy
    Variety
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic
    N/R

    Click to read the article

    Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
    11/06/02
    Jeff Strickler
    Jeff Strickler
    Minneapolis Star Tribune
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Hayes shows a deft touch with both cartoony slapstick and character-based comedy and manages to create moments of real poignancy in between.

    Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
    01/06/02
    Dan Via
    Dan Via
    Washington Post
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Seldom has a more misguided movie escaped from a major studio than Touchstone's Bubble Boy.

    Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
    08/31/01
    Kirk Honeycutt
    Kirk Honeycutt
    Hollywood Reporter
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    This amazingly tasteless, gross-out comedy is full of cruel jokes, stupid characters, schmaltzy sentimentality and situations that make no sense.

    comment Comment
    08/31/01
    Michael Wilmington
    Michael Wilmington
    Chicago Tribune
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Hollywood monstrosities all, and boy are they scary!

    Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
    08/28/01
    Nick Rutigliano
    Nick Rutigliano
    Village Voice
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    After enduring only a few minutes of this shrill debacle, you'll feel more trapped in the theater than Jimmy is by his bubble.

    Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
    08/27/01
    Bruce Fretts
    Bruce Fretts
    Entertainment Weekly
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Certainly the meanest-spirited film ever associated with the Disney hallmark.

    Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
    08/24/01
    Stephen Hunter
    Stephen Hunter
    Washington Post
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    It's impossible not to respond to Gyllenhaal's sweetness, wide eyes and dazzling smile, or to imagine anyone whose looks or personality would be more perfectly suited to the role.

    Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
    08/24/01
    Edward Guthmann
    Edward Guthmann
    San Francisco Chronicle
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Another smart-alecky road comedy with something to offend half the population.

    Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
    08/24/01
    Jan Stuart
    Jan Stuart
    Newsday
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    While this critic generally likes it when comedies trample on p.c. pieties, Bubble Boy crosses way over the line.

    Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
    08/24/01
    Jonathan Foreman
    Jonathan Foreman
    New York Post
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    It's got a brain that occasionally works, a ticker that sometimes pulses, and a nose intermittently keen to the whiff of hypocrisy.

    Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
    08/24/01
    Rick Groen
    Rick Groen
    Globe and Mail
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Utterly stupid and devoid of any redeeming features, Bubble Boy manages to be much better than it has any right to be.

    Full Review Source: CNN.com | comment Comment
    08/24/01
    Paul Clinton (CNN.com)
    Paul Clinton (CNN.com)
    CNN.com
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Goes through the motions of being outrageous when all it's really got is a rage to conform to formula.

    comment Comment
    08/24/01
    Jay Carr
    Jay Carr
    Boston Globe
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    When it clicks, the picture should shock you into laughter -- enough to make you wish it were better and applaud its efforts anyway.

    Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
    08/24/01
    Elvis Mitchell
    Elvis Mitchell
    New York Times
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    If anything, it's the filmmakers who seem insulated, working cluelessly within the plastic bubble of Hollywood.

    Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
    08/23/01
    Bruce Westbrook
    Bruce Westbrook
    Houston Chronicle
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    As sweet and resonant a Candide figure as American cinema has generated in years, Jimmy is also an original and undeniable metaphor for adolescent apartness.

    Full Review Source: Mr. Showbiz | comment Comment
    08/23/01
    Michael Atkinson
    Michael Atkinson
    Mr. Showbiz
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    If unfunny isn't enough, the flick is also guilty of unforgivable smugness.

    Full Review Source: Dallas Morning News | comment Comment
    08/23/01
    Philip Wuntch
    Philip Wuntch
    Dallas Morning News
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    The frothy Bubble Boy evaporates without delivering enough belly laughs.

    Full Review Source: USA Today | comment Comment
    08/23/01
    Claudia Puig
    Claudia Puig
    USA Today
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    A sad, badly made, badly written little flick full of outrageously gross gags, insipid jokes and tasteless visual puns.

    Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
    08/23/01
    Bob Longino
    Bob Longino
    Atlanta Journal-Constitution
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic
     
     
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    June 06, 2001: Osbourne dropped out of the project before his filming started. Opens in new window
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