Flubber (1997)

An absent-minded professor discovers "flubber," a rubber-like super-bouncy substance.

Director:

Les Mayfield

Writers:

Samuel W. Taylor (short story "A Situation of Gravity"), John Hughes (screenplay),

Stars:

Robin Williams, Marcia Gay Harden, Christopher McDonald

3 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robin Williams	...	Professor Philip Brainard
Marcia Gay Harden	...	Dr. Sara Jean Reynolds
Christopher McDonald	...	Wilson Croft
Ted Levine	...	Wesson
Clancy Brown	...	Smith
Raymond J. Barry	...	Chester Hoenicker (as Raymond Barry)
Wil Wheaton	...	Bennett Hoenicker
Edie McClurg	...	Martha George
Jodi Benson	...	Weebo (voice)
Leslie Stefanson	...	Sylvia
Malcolm Brownson	...	Father
Benjamin Brock	...	Window Boy
Dakin Matthews	...	Minister
Zack Zeigler	...	Teenage Boy
Sam Lloyd	...	Coach Willy Barker (as Samuel Lloyd)

Storyline

Professor Phillip Brainard, an absent-minded professor, works with his assistant Weebo, trying to create a substance that's a new source of energy and that will save Medfield College where his sweetheart Sara is the president. He has missed his wedding twice, and on the afternoon of his third wedding, Professor Brainard creates flubber, which allows objects to fly through the air. It looks like rubber, so he calls it flubber. This film is based on the 1961 Disney classic, "The Absent-Minded Professor.

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Plot Keywords:

professor | college | wedding | medfield college | flying rubber | 

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Taglines:

What is flubber?

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Genres:

Comedy | Family | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for slapstick action and mild language

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

26 November 1997 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Absent Minded Professor

Filming Locations:

Alameda, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

DEM 5,635,547 (Germany) (20 March 1998)

Gross:

£10,728,868 (UK) (8 May 1998)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Pictures, Great Oaks Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min 90 min (DVD edition)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

During the scene in Which Philip Brainard is talking to the basketball player Dale, the Fight song that is playing in the background is the fight song from Duke University.

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Goofs

Midway through the film, the scene after Philip comes back home in his flying car and is talking to weebo in his kitchen and telling her how much he loves Sara and weebo is recording it. At some point while Philip is standing up in that scene you can see it's daylight out the window but he has just got back in from the outside being night time, further more to prove it should have been night time outside, he turns off the light to go to sleep and weebo flies outside to go to Sara's home.

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Quotes

[after two of Brainard's balls hit Smith and Wesson while testing the Flubber, the bowling ball knocks the cap off a tank of a compressed gas]
Phillip Brainard: [high-pitched voice] This definitely has applications in the field of sports. Ho, ho, ho! Yes!

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Connections

Referenced in Psych: Murder?... Anyone?... Anyone?... Bueller? (2008)

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Soundtracks

"WEDDING MARCH FROM 'A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM' OP. 61"
Written by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Performed by Budapest Strauss Ensemble
Courtesy of Naxos of America
by Arrangement with Source/Q

User Reviews

When your most interesting character is a computer, you've got problems.

"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