“Flubber” is a remake of the old Fred MacMurray film, “The Absent-Minded Professor,” but Robin Williams, in the role of Phillip Brainard, takes absent-minded to a whole new level. He’s even spaced off his own wedding twice, and as the movie begins, his patient fiancé Sara (Marcia Gay Harden) is preparing to give it one more go that very night. With the school where they both teach on the brink of financial ruin, it’s a grim time, but a wedding will be just the thing to pull them out of the doldrums.
Phillip has been working for two years on a new substance, a form of energy encased in rubber. On this most important day in his life, he figures out the final step needed to finish his creation, and is so busy working on it that he forgets his wedding – again. Sara’s heart is broken and she won’t talk to him at all, even when he tries to tell her that he’s had the breakthrough of a century.
Meanwhile, Wilson, Phillip’s rival for Sara’s heart, has wandered into town, determined to steal Sara once and for all. Phillip uses his new invention, called flubber, to interfere with their relationship, and later, Phillip and Sara together use it to save the school.
This movie had a lot of great comic touches. Unlike the substance in the original film, this flubber has somewhat of a personality, and one particularly cute scene shows the flubber performing a Hollywood-style song and dance number on the kitchen counter. Also cute is Weebo, Phillip’s robotic assistant who has developed feelings of her own and has a crush on him. (She is voiced by Jodi Benson, the voice of the Little Mermaid.)
As a family film, this movie is pretty decent. There is one moment where Phillip mistakenly wanders into an art class, thinking it’s his own, and we see two nude models posing for the students. We don’t see anything, but it is obvious that they are nude. There is also one rude humor moment when Wilson, having swallowed some of the flubber, essentially farts it out the other side. I didn’t find either of these scenes offensive, however, and mention them only as a tool to help you decide for your own family’s needs.
More fun than a barrel of flubber, I did enjoy this film quite a bit and think you would too. It was rated PG.
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