Flubber: El invento del siglo

This movie had a lot of potential. While technically impressive and very enjoyable with some genuinely funny moments, for some reason it falls short. Of course there are redeeming qualities, such as the fun music score by Danny Elfman, one of my all time favourite film composers and an amusing turn from Robin Williams. Also the special effects are greatly improved from the effects in the Absent Minded Professor, and Flubber who is so cute steals the show. The performances from Clancy Brown, Ted Levine and Marcia Gay Horden are entertaining, and Jodi Benson (who voiced Ariel in the Little Mermaid)is a delight as the voice of Weebo, whose death is absolutely heart-rending. However the story is very predictable, and offers few surprises, and the physical comedy was better than the patchy script which in places felt uninspired. That saying some of the physical comedy has strong hints of deja vu, and is rather hit and miss. Of course kids will lap it up, but adults probably won't like it as much. The second half of the movie is more meandering in quality compared to the first half, very little of interest happens and some of the situations come across as ridiculous. All in all, somewhat forgettable, but for a kids movie it is pretty entertaining. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Phillip Brainard (Robin Williams) is the absent-minded professor. Chester Hoenicker (Raymond J. Barry) threatens to close the college run by his girlfriend president Sara Jean Reynolds (Marcia Gay Harden). He keeps forgetting to go to their wedding and she vows that this is the last attempt. His work with a new compound as an energy source can save their college. He has a mechanical assistant Weebo. His hated old partner Wilson Croft (Christopher McDonald) visits after stealing all of his ideas and now is after Sara. Chester's son Bennett (Wil Wheaton) is failing Brainard's class and he expected his father had already bought the grades. Chester sends his henchmen Smith (Clancy Brown) and Wesson (Ted Levine).

There are a lot of good possibilities that don't pan out. Weebo is not cute and a bit of an annoying jealous brat. There is an uncomfortable man-machine love story. Also he has a flying robot. HE HAS A FLYING ROBOT! That is probably enough to keep the college going. Professor Brainard is not lovable enough. Christopher McDonald is too good at being creepy and I can't buy anybody even liking the guy. MGH is not likable either. There are too many broadly unlikeable characters. The Flubber itself is fun for a little while and Williams has good imaginary chemistry with an imaginary object. It allows him to have some physical humor. Although it gets very repetitive. There is only so much Home Alone slapstick that should be repeated. It's also very stupid that people saw the basketball game without figuring it out. This should be funnier but it's not.

An absent minded professor discovers a new type of rubber that can be harnessed as an energy source. However his discovery causes him to miss his wedding and lose his girlfriend. While trying to demonstrate his discovery to Sara Jean to win her back, he gets the attention of mobster Hoenicker who wants the discovery for himself.

The story here is unimportant - it's all a bit daft and if you look too closely at it, it all falls apart. For example - the professor has created a flying robot that has full intelligence and character but yet he hasn't made any money for himself or his college!, is the flubber alive or not? etc. But really it's all about the set pieces and the jokes. As such it falls down a little - it's good for kids but there's nothing in the crude slapstick for adults. Jokes include the usual "people getting hit in the head" style humour.

Williams character is not funny at all - a bit of a weakness in a comedy lead. In fact his forgetfulness is just stupid at times and doesn't have any charm to cover it. The funniest bits actually revolve around McDonald's Wilson - he doesn't get good lines but he has lots of incidental laughs. Ted Levine and Clancy Brown have both done better than this and are limited to comedy thugs - although both were probably glad to be in a big movie. Other well known faces include Raymond J. Barry and Wil Wheaton, although these are also underused. It's not really a movie about performances but I think it's still important.

The best characters are Weebo and the flubber. Weebo is quite funny and actually has a deep character - she's the secretary in love with her boss type - she also creates a strangely moving scene. The flubber is good - best in one big musical number halfway through and I wonder if they could have had more imaginative scenes with it as a character rather than just a bouncy ball.

Overall it's a kids film - don't expect anything more than that.

"Flubber" is based upon that old comedy cliché, the absent-minded scientific genius. The central character, Professor Philip Brainard, is a brilliant inventor who has not only invented a robot that will do the housework for him but has also cracked the artificial intelligence problem by producing Weebo, a computer with its own personality that can not only talk to him but also fly. At present he is working on "flubber", a rubbery substance that will allow cars and other objects to fly through the air. For all his intellectual brilliance, however, his private life is so disorganised that he has forgotten to turn up to his own wedding to his attractive sweetheart Sara, not once but three times.

The plot turns upon Brainard's attempts to produce his flubber, which he sees as a solution to the financial problems confronting the college at which he teaches and of which Sara is the principal. (Like another reviewer, I found myself wondering why he didn't just try marketing his domestic robot or his talking computer, inventions which I thought would have had just as much commercial potential). Along the way, he has to fight off Wilson, the handsome but too smooth principal of another college who is his rival for Sara's affections, and a corrupt businessman who wants to use the flubber for his own selfish ends.

The film was clearly designed as a comedy for children, and works quite well as such, aided by a good deal of slapstick humour, mostly involving Robin Williams as Brainard. Unlike some children's films, however, such as the "Harry Potter" series, this one does not have much in it to keep adults entertained. Williams is clearly a talented comedian, but strangely enough, with a few exceptions such as "Mrs Doubtfire", he has been most successful in films with a serious purpose like "Dead Poets Society" or "Good Morning Vietnam", although even in these he often manages to find a use for his comic talents. In many of his comedies his talents just seem wasted. "Club Paradise" is an example, and "Flubber" is another. All the other characters, with one exception, just seem like stock figures with little individuality about them.

The one exception is Weebo the computer. The British computer pioneer Alan Turing devised what has since become known as the "Turing Test" for deciding whether a machine can be said to be intelligent. A human judge engages in a conversation with two other parties, one a human and the other a machine; if the judge cannot tell which is which, the machine is said to pass the test. Unfortunately, if the human involved were one of those in this film, Weebo would fail the test. She (Weebo has a female voice and personality) is smart, funny, sensitive and lovable, much more so than anyone else in the film, so it would be easy to tell them apart. And when your most interesting character is an electronic rather than a flesh-and-blood one, your film has got problems. 5/10

Philip (Robin Williams) is a chemistry professor at a college with financial woes. On a side note, the school's president, talented Sara Jean (Marcia Gay Harden) is Philip's girlfriend and she is deeply disappointed that he has left her standing at the altar THREE times. Yet, Philip truly loves Sara. His problem is, of course, that once he is into an experiment, he loses touch with everything else in his life. The day Philip misses his third trip up the aisle of love, he discovers something big...that is, flying rubber or flubber. Knowing this could be the invention that turns the college's ledger into the black, he is eager to tell Sara of the news. Unfortunately, she won't talk to him and is receiving the attentions of a rival chemistry prof at a nearby university. It is this rival's intention, along with a host of others connected to the school, to steal the rubbery substance for their own purposes. Will they succeed? This is a mildly entertaining film, mostly due to Williams star power and the spectacular visual effects the movie offers. Flubber, indeed, takes on a green personality not unlike the Pillsbury doughboy and bounces all over the place, causing much fun and havoc. There is also a tiny robot-computer, living with Philip, that is very appealing. Add on the eye-treat of flying cars and basketball superduper jumpshots and you have a technically impressive film. Yet, somewhere along the way, a bit of the original film's soul and joyous freshness is lost. No, its not the fault of the talented Williams, Harden, Christopher McDonald or the other cast members. They are quite fine. There are also some laugh out loud scenes, such as the one where Professor Philip starts giving a lecture, not noticing that he is in a figure drawing class, or the ones where a neighboring boy, quite rightly fears, to his father's consternation, what is outside his window when flubber is out and about. In summary, the film's problem is probably a case of trying too hard in the special effects category and not enough in the remaining aspects of film making. Even so, it is not a stretch to say that most families will like Flubber, as everyone will be amazed by the stunning look of the movie.