'The Beanie Bubble' review: Confusing take on the '90s craze

WHAT IT'S ABOUT If you've seen the "Barbie" movie a couple times and you're in search of another nostalgia kick, Apple TV+ offers a return to the height of the '90s Beanie Babies craze.

"The Beanie Bubble" tells the story of the rise of Ty Inc.'s cuddly, under-stuffed creations, the origins of the once-intense public interest and its sudden, rapid waning.

It's not a manifestation of an imagined universe ala "Barbie" or a thoughtful depiction of the sociological factors behind this sort of bubble and crash. Instead, it dramatizes the growth and evolution of the company and, as he's depicted in fictionalized form here, its exceptionally unsettling founder Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis).

The movie does so from the perspectives of the three women, composites of real people, that the picture presents as the secrets behind Ty Inc.'s success. They're Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), who co-founded the company; Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan), the brains behind the early internet operation; and Sheila Warner (Sarah Snook), whose children helped come up with some of the most iconic Beanies.

It's directed by Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash (a married couple, who also happen to be former Vice President Al Gore's daughter and the lead singer of the OK Go rock band, respectively).

MY SAY There's an interesting movie to be made about Beanie Babies, but it's not this one. The compelling movie takes an approach similar to "The Big Short" and its depiction of the housing market bubble, only with an added degree of accessibility appropriate for a story about plush creatures with names like Iggy the Iguana rather than collateralized debt obligations.

"The Beanie Bubble" begins promisingly, with a truck crash leading to countless Beanies spilling out onto a roadway and being scooped up by people in a frenzy, all captured in slow motion. The sequence suggests a grasp of the absurdity of this whole phenomenon, a focus on how a grassroots craze could become as big as it did. But the rest of the movie lets that go. There's hardly a regular Beanie fan left to be found on screen, except for the occasional brief appearance.

Instead, it presents a confusingly structured story built around the three protagonists and their experiences with the Beanie creator, who is, again, depicted as one of the all-time strangest movie characters, a deeply unnerving man-child. 

The screenplay jumps back and forth in time with head-spinning frequency, makes the fundamental mistake of having not one, or two, but three overbearing narrators, and ultimately offers a rather standard-issue portrayal of sexist office politics.

That's not to invalidate that story or to suggest it doesn't warrant attention. But focusing on it to the almost-total exclusion of every other factor that shaped the Beanie Babies narrative leads to a movie that has a lot less to offer than it should.

BOTTOM LINE This is the weakest of the year's crop of pictures that purport to tell the inside story behind iconic products. "Air," "BlackBerry" and "Tetris" are all better choices. There's also, always, a repeat "Barbie" viewing possible as well.