Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Flubber (1997)

6/18/2022

Flubber (1997) - A flop alright

♥

+ 3rd Worst Movie of the Year

A not well looking Robin Williams hands us some green goo on this poster for Les Mayfield's Flubber

Professor Brainerd invents a green mass with a series of extraordinary properties, - but others soon want to own his invention, and his fiancée!

Flubber is written by John Hughes (Weird Science (1985)) and Bill Walsh (Mary Poppins (1964)), based on Samuel W. Taylor's short story A Situation of Gravity, as a remake of The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), and directed by Les Mayfield (Encino Man (1992)).

Hughes disappoints horribly with this surprisingly flabby turkey. Robin Williams' (RV (2006)) enthusiasm can't salvage that his absent-minded professor character is more aptly described as a complete imbecile. (His 'science' among other things consists of his getting a golf ball and a bowling ball to fly around and smash up his entire lab.)

Marcia Gay Harden (Whip It (2009)) is cold, and the romance between the two is incomprehensible, until he saves her back, and she suddenly loves him. Ted Levine (Heat (1995)) and Clancy Brown (Justice League Unlimited (2004-06)) are bad, unfunny copies of the 'wet bandits' villains from the also Hughes-scripted Home Alone movies, who go through a lot lesser ordeals. And then there's the film's green 'hero', slime-ball Flubber, who doesn't achieve any real kind of personality - and wins no-one's hearts. In one scene the fellow multiplies and dances around, - as again science is just a bullhorn for infantile antics. There's also a flying sidekick, Weebo, who suffers from the same lack of personality as Flubber; it mainly communicates through use of old Disney clips ('cleverly' done, Disney...)

Flubber may be fun for little children but is a piece of scrap for everyone else - with good special effects, mostly VFX.

1997 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 80 mil. $

Box office: 177.9 mil. $

= Flop (returned 2.22 times its cost)

[Flubber premiered 16 November (New York) and runs 93 minutes. Shooting took place from October 1996 - February 1997 in California, including in San Francisco. The film opened #1 to a 26.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend at #1 and then 2 more weekends in the top 5 (#2-#5), grossing 92.9 mil. $ (52.2 % of the total gross). The international gross numbers are not released, but the total gross was not enough to make the film profitable. Roger Ebert gave the film a 1/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Mayfield returned with Blue Streak (1999). Williams returned with Good Will Hunting (1997). Flubber is rotten at 24 % with a 4.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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6/18/2022

Flubber (1997) - A flop alright

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