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REVIEW – ‘Bubble Boy’: ‘satanic allegory’ aimed ‘to make the good seem bad’

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HOLLYWOOD (BP)–One strain of contemporary music has been virulently anti-Christian for several years, with Marilyn Manson standing up attacking Christians and ripping out pages of the Bible. Experts trace this rebellion to Aleister Crowley, one of the fathers of modern Satanism, whose “do what thou wilt” and “sex is a weapon of liberation” philosophies have become popular in some segments of today’s culture.

“Bubble Boy,” underneath a sweet veneer, with a happy face ending, is just such a satanic allegory. Purposefully anti-Christian, the movie opens with little Jimmy being born from heaven with no immunities. He remembers the big bird (a nun with a funny hat) and an oversize crucifix as he gets wheeled down the hospital corridors.

After months in isolation, Jimmy is brought home to live in a bubble. His mother violently bakes him cookies in the shape of crosses and in the shape of fish with Jesus’ name on them. When she bakes her cookies, she prays imprecatory prayers against the evil outside world.

She tells Jimmy she’s going to protect him from the outside world. She tells him that women are prostitutes and the outside world is evil. Her house is decorated with pictures of Reagan and Nixon. Thus, Jimmy’s mom is more than the archetypal Christian nutcase.

Jimmy dutifully goes along with all this home schooling until the beautiful Cleo moves in next door. He watches her wash the car in a provocative manner. Now a teenager, his interest is aroused. His mother tells him to say the Pledge of Allegiance over and over until it goes away.

One day, Cleo decides to visit with Jimmy. Clearly she’s there to liberate him.

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A few years later when she declares she’s going to get married, Jimmy builds a personal bubble and heads out across America to stop the wedding “Graduate” style.

On the way to Niagara Falls, Jimmy meets a cult that is waiting for the second coming of the Chosen One. This cult again is concerned with sexual purity. They dump Jimmy in the middle of the desert, only to try to find him again later. A vicious biker picks Jimmy up and introduces him to the sins of Las Vegas. After Las Vegas, Jimmy gets involved with a group of freaks led by a mean midget named Dr. Freak. Two of the freaks are an Orthodox Jew and his wife who are joined at the head in a sick bigoted joke. Next, Jimmy gets involved with a Hindu ice cream salesman who has a bosomy Hindu goddess on top of his ice cream van. The Hindu evangelist is brought low by hitting a holy cow with his van. All the crew of people now looking for Bubble Boy, including the biker, the freaks, his parents and the cult members, run over the holy cow, splattering the Hindu time after time with blood.

Bubble Boy enters a female mud-wrestling contest to win $500 so he can take a cab to Niagara Falls. The old cab driver dies at the wheel. Finally, Jimmy takes a plane. The pilot dies, and the plane crashes. Jimmy falls over the falls, breaks up the wedding, rips open his bubble, and finds out that his mother has been lying to him all these years. In the last scene, everyone is engaged in hippie debauchery, smiling and joyous.

As prescribed by the Satanic Bible, sex liberates Bubble Boy from the evil confines of Christianity. Like cable TV’s “South Park,” this movie is purposefully offensive, but it is not an equal opportunity offender. Even with the anti-Semitism and anti-Hinduism, it is clear that the ultimate target is Christianity, Jesus Christ and the Word of God, the Bible. The acting, dialogue and story points are stupid, but, because of the nature of the mocking satire in the movie, this could be intentional. Regrettably, during the screening, the audience was laughing at all the bigoted jokes, especially the little children. And the warm fuzzy ending captured everybody’s heart.

This movie is beyond offense. It is a heavy-handed, sophomoric attempt to spread cancer throughout the fabric of our culture, to make the good seem bad and the bad seem good, to laugh at all things righteous and to extol all things perverse. Regrettably, in the tradition of “South Park,” American Pie” and “There’s Something About Mary,” it may find an audience among the youth, the very people who should not see this movie.

SUMMARY: Bubble Boy, which opens Aug. 24, is a satanic, anti-Christian, politically correct, hedonistic satire about a sick boy trapped in a plastic bubble who escapes his Christian fundamentalist, patriotic, Republican mother to hook up with his true love. Filled with obscene behavior and blatant sexual suggestiveness, Bubble Boy laughs at all things righteous and extols all things perverse.

RATING: PG-13.

DISTRIBUTOR: Touchstone Pictures/Disney/Buena Vista. Comments about the movie can be addressed to Michael Eisner, Chairman/CEO, The Walt Disney Company, 500 South Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521; telephone, (818) 560-1000; fax, 818-560-1930; e-mail, http://studio.go.com/cgi-bin/gmail/generic_mail.cgi?template=contactus/contact.tpl.

CONTENT: Satanic, demonic anti-Christian worldview mocking everything Christian, as well as mocking of Judaism, Hinduism and cultism, but clearly the main target is Christianity, with strong politically correct elements, including bigoted attacks on patriotic conservatives, Republican leaders like Ronald Reagan and “the religious right,” and advocacy of sexual hedonism. Mocking of physical handicaps. 27 obscenities, 6 profanities, constant blasphemy including mocking Jesus, prayer, nuns, the Bible, & virtue, and lots of obscene and blasphemous sight gags. Mock violence, sometimes obscene, such as women mud wrestling with Bubble Boy; midget beats Bubble Boy with a bat; freaks, bikers and cult members erupt into violent riot; blood spatters on Hindu from dead bull, which is continually run over; biker threatens to cut out man’s heart with large knife; cab driver and pilot die; car crashes; plane crash; Bubble Boy falls over Niagara Falls. Blatant sexual suggestiveness, but trimmed slightly to avoid R-rating, between female mud wrestlers, bikers, cult members, cult book shows private parts on transparency, masturbation jokes, transvestitism, very revealing cleavage, people in underwear, supposedly just shy of the R rating. Sex lauded as liberation from the constraints of Christianity. Drinking, smoking and references to drugs. Nirvana ice cream.
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Baehr is the founder and chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission and MOVIEGUIDE (R), a family magazine and radio and TV program that reviews movies from a biblical perspective, and the author of “The Media-Wise Family.” Edited from Dr. Ted Baehr’s Hollywood eNewsletter. A feature on Baehr’s work appeared in USA Today on Aug. 15.