The animation and cinematography of Netflix's Bubble (2022) was absolutely beautiful. The character's parkour movements were beyond satisfying to watch, and the soundtracks of the movie were nice to listen to. But such a picturesque movie cannot save its mediocre writing.
In a story that revolves around only bubble parkour and romance, the writers somehow fk up these two aspects.
The bubble parkour was interesting for the first twenty minutes, but soon the techniques slowly gets overused and now I have to watch them do the same moves for the rest of the hour. Unlike what was portrayed in the trailer, the action itself isn't edge-seat thrilling as expected. The only obstacle in the way of these bubble parkourers is a whirlpool which hardly seems like a threat (the movie never shows what happens @ the beginning) and the chasers who absolutely sucks at the game. So when the protagonist's team wins, it's not exciting.
The characters don't use their surroundings to think of new techniques etc, it's just hop hop on these flying debire. I understand that the movie isn't all an action movie, but if you want to follow a plot-line abt literal bubble parkour, doesn't that...? The parkour scenes isn't bad, but when you watch it, you would probably admire the animation more than the actual plot-line.
As for romance, it felt very rushed and confusing. You never get to understand why the main couple like each other. For almost the entire movie, Uta just acts like a cat, while Hibiki remains as this lonesome emo. While this isn't necessarily bad, the pair's interactions gives off a more sibling-ish/friendship vibe, and you don't really ship them. Like at all. Perhaps the only intimate scene before the two get together was when Uta creepily watches Hibiki sleep (lol) and when Uta sings for Hibiki. When the two do get together, you're like "oh, nice!" but that's it. However, the movie does get more heart-warming near the end, especially when the two plunges down or when Uta slowly dissipates as bubbles. It was very honey-sweet moment but still felt very incomplete.
The characterisation in this movie is just plainly horrible. For the characters that's meant to be in the main-team as Hibiki, they're equally as useless as that one random lobster dude (the one with two minute screen time). Because the main characters (Hibiki and Uta) don't interact with the four guys on the team, we don't get any sort of attachment or care for them at all. When they do show up, all their conversations are robotic, having the one sole purpose of just explaining context to us. The only side character that actually gets loved by the director, for some reason, is Makoto. She gets the most screen time yet she doesn't actually do the parkour??? She just stands there and reacts to certain things, helps Uta sometimes, and acts all cute... I guess. This is only a small scope of the poor characterisation in Bubble (2022) but you get the gist.
The plot-line had an insane ton of potential. But the writers fked it up by not following the elementary rule of 'Show not Tell' and proper characterisation. They somehow made the thrilling plot of parkour bubbles very boring. But despite these flaws, it had perfect animation and some heartfelt moments.
Bubble (2022) was a good movie, but it's definitely not a masterpiece.
In a story that revolves around only bubble parkour and romance, the writers somehow fk up these two aspects.
The bubble parkour was interesting for the first twenty minutes, but soon the techniques slowly gets overused and now I have to watch them do the same moves for the rest of the hour. Unlike what was portrayed in the trailer, the action itself isn't edge-seat thrilling as expected. The only obstacle in the way of these bubble parkourers is a whirlpool which hardly seems like a threat (the movie never shows what happens @ the beginning) and the chasers who absolutely sucks at the game. So when the protagonist's team wins, it's not exciting.
The characters don't use their surroundings to think of new techniques etc, it's just hop hop on these flying debire. I understand that the movie isn't all an action movie, but if you want to follow a plot-line abt literal bubble parkour, doesn't that...? The parkour scenes isn't bad, but when you watch it, you would probably admire the animation more than the actual plot-line.
As for romance, it felt very rushed and confusing. You never get to understand why the main couple like each other. For almost the entire movie, Uta just acts like a cat, while Hibiki remains as this lonesome emo. While this isn't necessarily bad, the pair's interactions gives off a more sibling-ish/friendship vibe, and you don't really ship them. Like at all. Perhaps the only intimate scene before the two get together was when Uta creepily watches Hibiki sleep (lol) and when Uta sings for Hibiki. When the two do get together, you're like "oh, nice!" but that's it. However, the movie does get more heart-warming near the end, especially when the two plunges down or when Uta slowly dissipates as bubbles. It was very honey-sweet moment but still felt very incomplete.
The characterisation in this movie is just plainly horrible. For the characters that's meant to be in the main-team as Hibiki, they're equally as useless as that one random lobster dude (the one with two minute screen time). Because the main characters (Hibiki and Uta) don't interact with the four guys on the team, we don't get any sort of attachment or care for them at all. When they do show up, all their conversations are robotic, having the one sole purpose of just explaining context to us. The only side character that actually gets loved by the director, for some reason, is Makoto. She gets the most screen time yet she doesn't actually do the parkour??? She just stands there and reacts to certain things, helps Uta sometimes, and acts all cute... I guess. This is only a small scope of the poor characterisation in Bubble (2022) but you get the gist.
The plot-line had an insane ton of potential. But the writers fked it up by not following the elementary rule of 'Show not Tell' and proper characterisation. They somehow made the thrilling plot of parkour bubbles very boring. But despite these flaws, it had perfect animation and some heartfelt moments.
Bubble (2022) was a good movie, but it's definitely not a masterpiece.