Plot: Phillip Brainard is a professor at Medfield College who is trying to create a new energy source to save the college. He is however very absent minded, which has lead to him missing two attempts to marrying his fiancee, Sarah. Before his third attempt at marrying Sarah, he figures out the new energy source and so creates a living, green goo that he calls Flubber. However, he misses the wedding while testing it, and so decides to try to figure out a way to use Flubber to save the school and win back Sarah's heart.
This... is not exactly one of Williams' best films. There's a lot of plot holes, some of the performances are over the top and the characters are horribly written, and watching it again, I realize that the actual character of Flubber has very small appearances in the film and doesn't have much of a clear identity. But that doesn't entirely stop it from being fun to watch once in a while. Even with it's obvious flaws, the story is kind of cute in an obviously for kids kind of way, the effects are dated, but they still look nice considering the time period and honestly, part of what makes this a watch-once-in-a-while kind of film is to try to forget and re-enjoy some of the comedy and inventions that Phillip makes. When it comes to the comedy, I realize that the older I get, the more I start to notice how some of the things that they do in terms of slapstick are not only unrealistic, but in some cases, the slapstick would actually kill some of the characters in real life. But it still is a little funny, so I enjoy it anyway.
When it came to Phillip's inventions - and this is mostly the little kid in me who saw this movie for the first time getting the better of me - I still like some of them. I like the breakfast machine (as cliched as that is), the Flubber-padded shoes, and the flying car. But my favorite by far was Weebo. I mean, I know I've grown up and have seen and loved cooler robots than her, i.e. Super Battle Droids, Droidikas, almost anything from Skynet, The Transformers, and so on. But the concept of Weebo just leaves me wishing I had a robot like her that would fly around and especially had a screen that would pop up to show things like schedules or clips from movies or shows to express something happening. I thought she was really cool because of that as a kid, and despite growing up and seeing cooler looking robots, part of me still thinks it would be awesome if there were robots like her in real life. As a character, she still had some flaws, but she was likable enough...except that watching it again, I thought she was pretty mean during the first third or so of the movie. It was clear that she had a thing for Phillip (which is pretty screwed up when I think about it now that I'm grown up), but it never hit me until watching this movie again that she was one of the major reason why he missed the wedding. She was nicer as the film went on, but I didn't notice until now that she was actually a jerk that tried to make sure he missed it out of jealousy. Go figure.
Now as for Phillips...well...he's pretty much a badly written character when you get down to it. By all accounts he shouldn't come out as likable considering how he's so absent minded and missed his wedding three times and focused so much on his work. But, I would make the argument that the one thing that makes him appear at least a little bit likable is Robin Williams himself. Don't get me wrong, he's still not that well thought of, of a character, but at the same time, Williams gave enough of his usual charm to make him at least a little bit likable anyway.
And that's my review for Flubber. It is not well written, the characters aren't all that likable, the story has some plot holes, but at the same time, the slapstick, invnetions and Phillip himself are likeable to a degree that makes this a harmless, once in a long while kind of film.
Rating: 60%
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