Flubber

Even die-hard fans of Robin Williams, who chortled through Mrs Doubtfire and The Birdcage while the rest of us were rolling our eyes in despair, may be disappointed with this simplistic update of 1961’s The Absent-Minded Professor in which the humour-meister pulls a few funny faces but is upstaged at every turn by a dancing green blob of goo and a talking flying saucer named Weebo.
Philip Brainard (Williams) is a very absent-minded professor who can’t even remember the date of his upcoming wedding because he’s busy working on a new form of energy. What he comes up with instead is an emerald-coloured rubbery substance (flubber) with its own personality which, when smeared on any object, makes it fly through the air at breakneck speed. Throw in some evil dudes who want the formula, a slimy colleague who’s after Brainard’s girl and a five-minute flubber dance number and you have a flimsy, weakly humorous film with some nice effects that will probably just about satisfy very junior viewers but test the patience of everyone else.