Finally, Clancy has a movie that he can show his daughter before she turns 18! Clancy plays "Smith", one of two cartoonish bad guys. The other guy was named "Wesson". Well, when I heard that it was going to be "Smith with Wesson", I immediately thought of things that would make our General Manager blush. Er... nevermind.
One thing I can say about this movie is that, if you don't buy into the premise in the first two minutes, you'll be bored. Robin Williams takes over the Fred MacMurray role of Professor Phil Brainard, an absent-minded but brilliant chemistry professor who works at a small, financially struggling college. He has a fiancee, Sara - the president of the college - that he's left at the altar twice because of his forgetfulness, an old college "friend" who is intent on stealing his lady and his inventions, and a houseful of robots of varying intelligence. The main robot is called "Weebo". She's his flying electronic assistant, secretary, etc. She's jealous of Sara, and constantly distracts Brainard from his lady. Brainard cares for Weebo, but naturally thinks of her as a friend. Weebo's main schtick is that she flashes various clips of movies, cartoons, etc. to match her mood.
The first bad guy, Wilson, notifies Brainard that he's there to steal his woman and his inventions. Brainard, of course, doesn't get it. He's too occupied with the flubber. The other bad guy is a rich donor to the college, whose son (Wil Wheaton) failed Brainard's class. The whiny kid (think Weasley Crusher without the brains) wants revenge on Brainard, and daddy sends his two thugs Smith and Wesson to get something on the Prof to blackmail him Here's where Clancy comes in.
Meanwhile, an accident in Brainard's basement lab causes him to miss yet another wedding, and produces the miraculous substance that he calls "flying rubber", or "flubber". It's a green, gelatinous substance that looks like Odo, and bounces like a super ball. As he's experimenting with various forms of flubber, Smith and Wesson are spying on him. Clancy gets beaned with a flubberized golf ball, and the other thug gets it in the head with a flubberized bowling ball. Repeatedly. Then, they hit the flubberized pavement and bounce all the way back to their boss. When they report what they've seen, the boss asks them if they'd been drinking. To which Clancy got in his best line - "Two beers at dinner, and he had some wine."
To make a long story short, Brainard markets his flubber, gets the girl, saves the college, and causes their hard-luck basketball team to beat the monsters from the rival college. And the flubber has a long, Busby-Berkley style "dance" number called the "Flubber Mambo". Smith and Wesson steal the flubber, and Brainard goes after it. Which leads to the only scene that Clancy has with Robin Williams, where all of the bad guys get beaned, knocked out, and fly through the air courtesy of the flubber.There's violence, but it's on the cartoon level. Oh, and one farting joke.
Best lines: "Go home and play with your rubber." - Wilson
"The Squirrels (the college basketball team) are getting their nuts
buried." - Basketball announcer
Every line of Clancy's.
"Flubber" is a good kid's movie. Not great, but an entertaining way to spend two hours. I kept remembering the comment about Clancy being a "big kid" during the whole movie. It was obvious that he must've had a ball (no pun intended) filming this one. If you can get past the fact that Weasley Crusher is in it, you'll enjoy it. In fact, we applauded when Weasley got beaned in the final scene. I give it four flubberized golf balls out of five. Like I said: good, but falling short of great. And if you don't like it, you can always go to the next theater over and see Clancy in "Starship Troopers".
This is Maryland J. Koba, signing off to go fight the crowds at the
mall....