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80The bubble-kid moms can whine all they want, but Bubble Boy is a liberated movie --liberated from tastefulness, of course, but also from logic, suffering, consequence, and temperance.
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80Playfully quirky film takes equal-time potshots at its many easy targets -- fundamentalism, intolerance, ethnic stereotypes.
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78It's a shame if the controversy surrounding Bubble Boy distracts people from what a smart, subversive, and genuinely good-hearted film it is.
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75This movie has a sweetness at its core.
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Bubble Boy simply has the gall to make light of one of the last untouchable left in America: disease.
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60When it clicks, the picture should shock you into laughter -- enough to make you wish it were better and applaud its efforts anyway.
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58This is a semi-mean-spirited movie; had it remained that way, it could have redeemed itself.
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58It's hardly original and rarely laugh-out-loud funny -- the filmmakers constantly fall back on the sight of bounding balloon Jimmy squeezing his way out of one situation after another.
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50Belongs to that genre of movie that works hard to achieve a certain twisted and demented wit.
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50Though there are some funny sequences, the frothy Bubble Boy evaporates without delivering enough belly laughs.
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50There's always been room for rudeness in humor. In fact, it can be invigorating. But Bubble Boy goes through the motions of being outrageous when all it's really got is a rage to conform to formula.
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40Seems bent on creating equal-opportunity offense to many groups, but more often than not is appalling simply for its silliness and lack of comedic control.
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38Fitfully funny at best, it's a sophomoric, facetious road comedy.
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It seems that in the movies, at least, there is a limit to how far low expectations can take you.
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30Hard though this antic farce tries to be outrageous, its satirical jabs at American culture are obvious and juvenile, as is the use of Jimmy's plastic bubble as a goofy metaphor for fear of life.
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30The coke-fried gibbons behind Bubble Boy came to a trailblazing conclusion: The ideal filmic oddity is white, male, and -- a mother's deception notwithstanding -- perfectly healthy.
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30This Farrelly brothers "hommage" replicates the mechanics of their work without echoing its spirit or complex tone, and many of the deliberate offenses fail to transcend mere exploitation.
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25The bubble-boy niche is thankfully small. John Travolta began his career playing one in a TV movie, but this movie will undoubtedly finish off the genre for good.
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20Nearly every attempt at humor in this witless, completely reprehensible "movie" is mean-spirited and stupidly conceived at the expense of some group that deserves better.
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10What a bummer! Certainly the meanest-spirited film ever associated with the Disney hallmark.
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After enduring only a few minutes of this shrill debacle, you'll feel more trapped in the theater than Jimmy is by his bubble.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 23 out of 24
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Mixed: 0 out of 24
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Negative: 1 out of 24
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10
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FelixQ.10
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10One of the best Jake Gyllenhaal movies I ever seen, following Donnie Darko. Great comedy and great acting in the process.