Bubble Boy

Reviewed by:
Eric Alt

This is where we separate the men from the boys, folks. We separate the lame, touchy, “Oooh, I’m easily offended,” cheese-eatin’ surrender-monkeys from the people who can take a friggin’ joke. If you haven’t already heard, the makers of Bubble Boy have already come under fire for making a comedy about a child born with an immunity disorder. But that’s not all! Bubble Boy doesn’t stop with immunity disorders, it manages to make fun of the religious right, cults, Hindus, freaks, midgets, bikers, the elderly, Asians, and a few others. Meaning, of course, that’s it’s funny as hell.

Granted, our standards have been lowered by “comedies” like American Pie 2, Freddy Got Fingered, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, and many others that have been shat out lately, but we found Bubble Boy funny because it’s just so…wrong. But apart from that, it also manages to be just unreal enough to make the jokes work—the Boy (Jake Gyllenhaal) goes out into a “real” world in which bus stations and convenience stores are marked with giant red signs that read simply: “Bus” and “Beer.” Armed with a warped perspective on humanity forged by a freakishly conservative mother, he encounters angry midgets (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me’s Verne Troyer, whose first line of dialogue is “I’m not mini!”), a shiny happy cult leader (Fabio!), and even the Howard Stern Show’s Beetlejuice. Perhaps the most surprising thing is how deadpan most of the jokes are, which helps balance out some of the movie’s more over-the-top moments. So check your sensitivity at the door, America, and learn to laugh for a change.