2/5 stars Arriving less than a week after the 94th Academy Awards ceremony put Hollywood’s worst narcissistic insecurities on display for the world to see, Judd Apatow delivers his latest comedy, in which a cast of pampered actors suffer a collective neurotic meltdown during a pandemic-enforced lockdown. While fitfully diverting thanks to its ensemble of accomplished comic actors, The Bubble is bloated, too long and often achingly unfunny, and succumbs to many of the self-congratulatory tendencies it looks to satirise. Karen Gillan takes point as actress Carol Cobb, who reluctantly agrees to rejoin the big-budget fantasy franchise Cliff Beasts for its sixth go-around after ducking out of the previous instalment, much to the chagrin of her co-stars. Filming in London at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Carol and the rest of the cast and crew are confined to a quarantine bubble for the shoot in a palatial hotel deep in the English countryside. After 14 days of solitary isolation, the cast assembles to begin shooting, whereupon lingering rivalries, resentments and personal insecurities flare up and disrupt production at every turn. Cobb’s regular co-stars, played by David Duchovny and Leslie Mann – Apatow’s wife in real life – are an on-again, off-again married couple. Keegan-Michael Key’s character hopes to recruit his screen partners into his new lifestyle cult, Pedro Pascal’s brooding thespian has his eye on Maria Bakalova’s hotel clerk, while Fred Armisen plays the franchise’s new director, an unwelcome Sundance independent film festival darling who struggles to make the transition to blockbuster directing. Apatow has been casting his own children in his work since 2007’s Knocked Up . Younger daughter Iris, now 19, lands her first starring role in The Bubble , as TikToker Krystal Kris, and steals the film from her more seasoned co-stars. Hoping to emulate the on-set anarchy displayed in Ben Stiller’s infinitely more successful Tropic Thunder , The Bubble feels tired and slapdash, as if thrown together with the same lethargy as its displaced characters display. It recalls Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up , a similarly self-satisfied satire with an inflated budget that was itself filmed in a bubble-like environment. Apatow’s films have a tendency to run long and, like McKay, he encourages his actors to improvise in front of the cameras. Unfortunately, without heavyweight collaborators like Seth Rogen or Paul Rudd, the result is an arduous experience to rival any enforced quarantine. The Bubble is streaming on Netflix. Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook