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| Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 0
| You can stop trying to figure out the worst film of the year right now. This is one of the most embarassing pieces of crap ever to emerge from the tired brain of John Hughes. It is simply the laziest script ever written, full of things that make absolutely no sense, refusing to even adhere to it's own sense of idiotic logic. It's the story of a professor who is trying to invent an anti-gravity polymer. He's so absent minded that he has missed his own wedding three times. His best pal is a little floating mechanical device with a video screen that flies around the house helping him out and giving him advice. Did you hear that? He has ALREADY INVENTED a device that can fly around of it's own accord, yet we're supposed to go EUREKA when he gets his car to fly. Are you insulted yet? Can you believe we're supposed to get involved with a man who is desperately trying to create something he has already created? John Hughes thinks we're idiots. Once flubber is invented, the film continues to violate every single rule of decent screenwriting. The flubber does all kinds of crazy things that have absolutlely nothing to do with the plot of the film. At one point, when no one is looking, the flubber breaks itself into hundreds of pieces and does an enormous Carmen Miranda musical number. How does a piece of FLying rUBBER know how to do this? WHY would a piece of FLying rUBBER do this? Who cares? The scene is there because it is there. Cut it out and the film doesn't change at all. Cut out just about every single scene where the flubber does something supposedly funny and it doesn't effect the plot at all. The first thing that the professor does with the flubber is put it on a golf ball. It bounces around his laboratory destroying everything in its path. What's the next thing the professor does? He puts the flubber on a bowling ball. We laugh in anticipation of the havoc it will wreak. We also learn that the professor isn't just absent minded, he's a moron. Who gives a damn what happens to this idiot? Later, his little floating mechanical pal gets smashed. What does he do? He cries. This is the single most embarrassing moment of Robin Williams carreer. He doesn't cry when his bride abandons him. He cries when his little toy breaks. A toy he built. A toy he can easily rebuild. I could go on and on but I won't. The film doesn't deserve analysis. It deserves immolation.
By : Michael Dare
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| | Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 1
| There are many philosophies as to why we are so fascinated with cartoons. They provide a method of total escapism in which anything will work within their context, from the outrageous slapstick of Looney Tunes to the intensity of Japanimation. Watching "Flubber" really clinched this idea for me, because it's just a live action cartoon that presents itself as a regular comedy. It proves how painfully unfunny all those gags and slapstick would be in reality, and how important it is to actually have a story.
The film wastes no time in establishing its lighthearted, cartoony atmosphere. We meet Medfield College chemistry professor Phillip Brainard (Williams), the typical, supposedly likable mad scientist. Within the first 10 minutes we get at least a half dozen jokes about how forgetful he is. Phillip's memory loss seems less like a cartoony gag and more like a real case of Alzhiemer's Disease - isn't this rather lowbrow comedy? He starts teaching chemistry after walking in on a nude figure drawing class (an inappropriate joke for a kids' movie if I ever saw one). We learn he has stood his up fiancee, Sara (Harden), twice at the altar simply because he's forgotten. Sara claims to love him, but says if he forgets the wedding again she'll stop loving him (a sign of childish attitude the film denies it has).
But even cartoons must have conflicts to resolve, and it's no surprise the major conflicts here are related. Christopher McDonald does and even worse version of his usual villain shtick as Wilson Croft, a scientist who not only wants to steal Phillip's ideas, but his woman too. What's worse is that Sara actually seems interested in him! Wilson works for a rival college that wants to buy out Medfield, which is going broke, unless Phillip can invent something to save the day.
One of the first rules of filmmaking is to make sure the title has something to do with the film. The flubber is played for gags after it is introduced, but is all but forgotten about thereafter. It's obvious Phillip is going to accidentally invent flubber, a flying rubber compound that yields tremendous energy, and the promotions make the flubber look realistic and funny. Unfortunately, the flubber, like all the special effects in this film, looks very fake and unconvincing. Flubber also seems to have intelligence and a personality, and by the time it performs a song and dance routine, you give up wondering how life could spontaneously come to an inanimate object.
Most of the film wanders aimlessly as it relies on the flubber to make for the comedy (since Phillip's absent-mindedness is forgotten about) and somehow push the story along. But it's clear how weak this premise is from the get-go and the film just gets worse. All the jokes involve people getting hit by fast-moving, flubber-powered objects including: bowling balls; flying cars that don't fly well; and a basketball team capable of jumping 100 feet into the air. It's all presented with complete logic, and no one believes flubber exists even when they see it with their own eyes. During the basketball scene, the coach for the rival team actually says, "I think they might be cheating," to which the referee replies, "There's no rules about jumping too high."
"Predictable" doesn't begin to describe the motions the film goes through, especially after the halfway point. And it's not how terribly contrived the plot is, it's the way it's broken down scene-by-scene, with absolutely no transition. Not only that, but all the actors here, especially Williams, seem bored to tears. I'd say 80 percent of all the scenes were shot with a bluescreen, so it's almost forgivable when you realize they're talking to nothing and interacting with nothing.
It's safe to say everything that could be bad about "Flubber" is. The only original element the film has is the world's first romance between a machine and a human. But this aspect is quite twisted if you think about it, and, like the rest of the film, you won't.
By : Chad Polenz
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