--- title: "Flubber" year: 1997 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/flubber" fi1m_id: "flubber" imdb_id: "tt0119137" tmdb_id: 9574 wikidata_id: "Q1325217" fi1m_score: 50 critics_score: 59 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-10-05T00:42:32.901038+00:00" updated: "2026-10-05T00:42:33.355931+00:00" region: "CO" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Flubber (1997) Directed by Les Mayfield · 1h 33m · Comedy, Family, Science Fiction ## Identity Flubber - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/flubber - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** flubber - **IMDb ID:** tt0119137 - **TMDB ID:** 9574 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1325217 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119137/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/9574, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1325217 **Fi1m score: 50** · Critics 59 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* A green blob dances a mambo, two henchmen are hit on the head with heavy objects, and that is roughly the whole film > Les Mayfield’s remake of Disney’s *The Absent-Minded Professor* has a lively green blob, a touching robot and a bouncy Danny Elfman score, and no script to put under them. Robin Williams is reined in; nothing is offered in his place. ## Synopsis Professor Philip Brainard (Robin Williams) teaches chemistry at Medfield College, a small school about to be closed for debt, and spends his nights in his basement laboratory chasing a new source of energy that might save it. He is due to marry the college president, Sara Jean Reynolds (Marcia Gay Harden), and has missed the ceremony twice. His only reliable companion is Weebo (voiced by Jodi Benson), a hovering robot who makes her points with old film clips. His rival Wilson Croft (Christopher McDonald) wants Sara and Brainard’s ideas. Chester Hoenicker (Raymond J. Barry), who holds the college’s loan, sends two men, Smith (Clancy Brown) and Wesson (Ted Levine), to watch the professor. Then a basement experiment produces a green rubbery substance that bounces, and keeps bouncing harder. ## Review Les Mayfield’s remake of *The Absent-Minded Professor* (1961) gives Fred MacMurray’s job to Robin Williams and hands the bouncing green rubber to a computer, and the result is a film that works for about forty minutes and then runs out of things to do. Everything in it that pleases is a thing: the Flubber, a hovering robot called Weebo, Danny Elfman’s score. Everything that does not is a person, because the people have been written in a line each. It runs 93 minutes and carries a PG, and that is a fair bargain only if the people on the sofa are under ten. Williams plays Philip Brainard quietly. He wears a bow tie and a mild, faraway smile, forgets his own wedding for the third time without seeming to notice he has done it, and hardly improvises at all. In principle that is a relief; in practice it is a loss, because the screenplay by John Hughes and Bill Walsh does not give him jokes to replace the riffs it has taken away. He is pleasant to watch and he is given almost nothing to do with his hands or his mouth. Marcia Gay Harden has less still, a woman whose job is to be stood up and then to forgive. Christopher McDonald does his smirk as Wilson Croft, and Raymond J. Barry glowers as the man with the loan. The stuff itself is good. The Flubber squashes, stretches, splits into dozens of small green bodies and reforms, and it has a face when it wants one, which is often. Mayfield gives it a dance number, a mambo on the basement workbench with the little blobs in rows, and we grinned at it, properly, for the length of the song. We also noticed it had nothing to do with anything, and that the film knew that and did it anyway, which tells you how thin the story under it is. The best idea in the film is Weebo, voiced by Jodi Benson, who plays clips from old films on her flip-up screen to say what she cannot, and who is plainly in love with the man who built her. It is the one place where somebody feels something, and the somebody is a machine. The craft is sound. Dean Cundey, who shot [*Back to the Future*](https://film.one/film/back-to-the-future) and [*Jurassic Park*](https://film.one/film/jurassic-park), lights the basement in warm yellows and green glass, so the lab looks like somewhere a child would want to be rather than somewhere an accident is about to happen. Andrew McAlpine gives Brainard a clapboard house with every surface covered in half-finished machines and a college of red brick and mown grass. April Ferry dresses the professor in tweed and bow ties and the villains in suits a size too sharp. Elfman’s score is the film’s engine, all tubular bells and a rising brass figure every time the green stuff leaves the floor, and it works harder than the script. Michael A. Stevenson and Harvey Rosenstock keep the set pieces tight and the scenes between them short. Then there is the other thing Hughes brought with him from [*Home Alone*](https://film.one/film/home-alone): the henchmen. Clancy Brown and Ted Levine, both actors who can be frightening when a film asks them to be, are here to be struck on the head. A bowling ball does it. Then another does it. Then the Flubber does it. We laughed at the first, and by the third we were watching two good character actors wait to be hit and felt faintly sorry for them. Children will not share our reservation; the loudest laughter in the house will be at precisely these moments, and it is for the children that the film was made. The 1961 original was a modest black-and-white comedy that trusted MacMurray’s bafflement to carry it, and the car that flew was a wonder because so little else did. This one has a car that flies, a basketball game it will not let us forget, and a professor who is a passenger in his own picture. Against Williams’s own record it sits well below [*Mrs. Doubtfire*](https://film.one/film/mrs-doubtfire) (1993), where the gags were his, and *Jumanji* (1995), where the effects at least made him run. Put it on for the children and stay for the mambo, the robot and the score. Expect to be doing something else by the hour mark. The film will not mind; it is not really looking at you either. *Fi1m score 50, published 5 October 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics find Flubber pleasant, good-natured family entertainment, and most stop there. The praise clusters on the effects: the computer-generated flubber is singled out as lively and well integrated with the story, and even the harsher reviews credit the effects artists with the film’s best work. Robin Williams gets a steady, modest round of approval, and one review notes a more restrained performance than he usually gives. The reservations are about everything around the green stuff. Several reviews find the story thin and the set-up familiar, and the comedy itself is judged to fall short more often than it lands. The spread is moderate rather than wide: five of the seven land in the middle, with Variety the only firm recommendation and Eye for Film the only outright dismissal, finding the film story-poor and tired despite its effects. Roger Ebert sits between them, finding little beyond Williams’s energy to enjoy. ## Straight answers **Is Flubber worth watching?** *Flubber* is worth watching only if the people on the sofa are under ten, and we scored it 50. The green blob, the hovering robot Weebo and Danny Elfman's score are the pleasures; the script gives Robin Williams almost nothing to do, and the film runs out of ideas around the hour mark. Adults should expect to drift. **How long is Flubber, and what is it rated?** *Flubber* runs 1h 33m. It is a comedy and family film. **Where can I watch Flubber in Colombia?** *Flubber* is streaming on Disney+ in Colombia. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How does Flubber compare to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?** [*Honey, I Shrunk the Kids*](https://film.one/film/honey-i-shrunk-the-kids) is the better film: inventive and brisk where *Flubber* is thin and repetitive. Both are Disney comedies about a distracted scientist, but the earlier film builds a whole adventure out of its back garden, while *Flubber* has a mambo, a robot and little else. Choose *Flubber* only for the youngest viewers who want things hit on the head. **What should I watch after Flubber?** After *Flubber*, try [*Honey, I Shrunk the Kids*](https://film.one/film/honey-i-shrunk-the-kids) (1989, Fi1m 76): Disney’s other distracted scientist, with a back garden worth the whole of Medfield. Then [*Mrs. Doubtfire*](https://film.one/film/mrs-doubtfire) (1993, Fi1m 74): Williams let off the leash, and a family comedy with a real ache under it; and [*Paddington*](https://film.one/film/paddington) (2014, Fi1m 84): Slapstick for children that never needs to hit anyone on the head. ### Reviews we read (7) - **Variety**, Joe Leydon (70/100, inferred): Leydon finds the film funny, brisk family entertainment and an unusually successful Disney remake. He especially praises the lively, computer-generated Flubber and the integration of its effects with the story. [Read](https://variety.com/1997/film/reviews/flubber-1117339911/) - **Empire**, Caroline Westbrook (65/100, inferred): Westbrook finds the film pleasant, good-natured entertainment, though its story and effects feel familiar. She singles out its entertaining set pieces and restrained sentimentality as its strengths. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/flubber-review/) - **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (64/100, inferred): The review text is inaccessible, so its verdict cannot be established. No praise or complaint can be reliably identified from the available page. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/26/movies/film-review-high-tech-gunk-returns-splat.html) - **Time Out**, WH (64/100, inferred): The page identifies this as a film review, but the review text is unavailable. Its verdict and any specific praise or complaint cannot be determined. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/flubber) - **Radio Times**, John Ferguson (3/5): Ferguson describes the film as a smart update of the original, though the three-star rating suggests a qualified verdict. He singles out its sophisticated special effects as part of the remake’s appeal. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-v6xqyy/flubber/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (2/4): Ebert gives the film a mixed-to-negative verdict. He finds little to praise beyond Robin Williams's energetic performance, while the comedy itself falls short. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/flubber-1997) - **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film story-poor and stylistically tired, despite its impressive effects. He praises Robin Williams’s restrained performance and the effects artists’ work with the flubber. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/flubber-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) ## Details - **Director:** Les Mayfield - **Director:** Les Mayfield - **Screenplay:** Bill Walsh, John Hughes - **Cinematography:** Dean Cundey - **Editor:** Michael A. Stevenson, Harvey Rosenstock - **Music:** Danny Elfman - **Production design:** Andrew McAlpine - **Costume design:** April Ferry - **Producer:** Ricardo Mestres, John Hughes - **Cast:** Robin Williams as Professor Philip Brainard; Marcia Gay Harden as Dr. Sara Jean Reynolds; Christopher McDonald as Wilson Croft; Raymond J. Barry as Chester Hoenicker; Clancy Brown as Smith; Nancy Olson as Secretary at Ford Motor Company; Ted Levine as Wesson; Wil Wheaton as Bennett Hoenicker - **Runtime:** 1h 33m - **First release (Brazil):** 26 November 1997 - **Genres:** Comedy, Family, Science Fiction - **Budget:** $80 million - **Box office:** $178 million ## Where to watch in Colombia - Disney+: streaming, hd *Checked 2026-10-05.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, IE, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Absent-Minded Professor* (1961): The original, in black and white, where one flying car was enough. - *Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers* (1993): A mad inventor, a lab in the house, and a plot that actually works. - *Honey, I Shrunk the Kids* (1989), Fi1m 76: Disney’s other distracted scientist, with a back garden worth the whole of Medfield. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/honey-i-shrunk-the-kids.md) - *Mrs. Doubtfire* (1993), Fi1m 74: Williams let off the leash, and a family comedy with a real ache under it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/mrs-doubtfire.md) - *Paddington* (2014), Fi1m 84: Slapstick for children that never needs to hit anyone on the head. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/paddington.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/flubber