Courtesy photo

Jimmy Livingston, played by Jake Gylenhall, poses with a roll of toilet paper in "Bubble Boy." The comedy is in theaters now.

Friday August 24, 2001 |

Grade: D+

"Bubble Boy" is one of the least memorable movies released this year. People can walk into the movie theater and walk out as if nothing even occurred.

The movie's failure is not the cast's fault, although there are few (if any) memorable characters. It is not the story's fault. Although the plot runs thin, the writers do quite a lot with what they are given. It is, simply, that at no point in the movie do you feel like you are watching something that a chimpanzee couldn't make with the right budget.

The story follows three days in the life of Jimmy Livingston (Jake Gyllenhall) and his quest from California to Niagara Falls to find his true love, Chloe (Marley Shelton), before she marries the overly clichˇd, undesirable potential-hubby Mark (Dave Sheridan).

The problem is that Jimmy has lived his entire existence sheltered by a plastic bubble-like device, so contact with the outside world is limited, to say the least. The reason behind his plastic sheltering is an extremely overprotective, Bible-thumping mother (Swoosie Kurtz) who is hell-bent on the notion that as long as she can keep her son away from everything outside of her home/his bubble, he will be pure. It is up to Jimmy to break away from the chains of repression and begin a journey to find Chloe before she makes the wrong decision.

Along the way Jimmy tackles many adventures, which comprise the bulk of the movie.

These adventures fail for many reasons. Although there are some funny characters, they are, with the exception of Verne Troyer (Mini-me from "Austin Powers 2") - who plays a Freak Show owner - completely unrecognizable actors. Using unknown actors isn't bad, but with such poor dialogue and situations, only seasoned comics can pull off most of this shtick.

The actors have limited space to build substantial characters and even less for dialogue and situations. For instance, Jimmy gets a ride from a turban-wearing, heavily accented, cow-worshiping Pakistani ice-cream man who, while driving his truck, gets distracted and hits - you guessed it - a cow. The gag was better the first time when it appeared in "Me, Myself and Irene."

The time spent on each of Jimmy's adventures is so miniscule (10 minutes, max) that you begin to wonder if the next character that pops up will be funnier than the one currently on screen.

Kurtz as Jimmy's mother has her moments, but the movie is still too short. Gyllenhaal is engaging enough as Jimmy, but he had little more to do than make funny faces and sounds, bounce around in a bubble suit and act amazed that he can step in dog poo now that he is out of his mother's house. The rest of the characters are so paper-thin they could be blown away by the theater's air-conditioning system.