Flubber

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Released	1997
Running Time	90:08 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Les Mayfield
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Robin Williams  Marcia Gay Harden Christopher McDonald Raymond Barry Clancy Brown Ted Irvine
Case	Black Amaray
RPI	$36.95	Music	Danny Elfman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Pan & Scan	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) Dutch (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s) Polish (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

   Medfield College is in trouble - serious trouble. It has Professor Philip Brainard (Robin Williams) on the payroll. But it also owes a lot of money on a loan from businessman Chester Hoenicker (Raymond Barry) and that is the fundamental back story here. The loan is due and the College has no money to repay the loan, and so its knight in shining armour is none other than its own absent-minded professor, Philip Brainard. His back story is that he is the absent-minded professor and thus far has missed two previous attempts at his wedding to Sara Jean Reynolds (Marcia Gay Harden) and his third and final attempt is imminent. Trouble is, he has a flying computer called Weebo that loves him and hates Sara, and so takes every opportunity not to remind him of his wedding. Philip is determined to crack his current problem, which he knows will revolutionize the energy industry and make lots of money and save Medfield College, and so he labours on through the night to invent his green goo, which he calls Flubber - as in Flying Rubber. He also misses his wedding and so loses his love. Hey, but this is a Disney film so don't get the Kleenex out just yet.

   Things start to get really, really by-the-book Disney now. Rutland-based colleague Wilson Croft (Christopher McDonald), known for pilfering Philip's ideas ("otherwise you would lose them") makes the big play for Sara. Add into the mix the henchmen of Chester Hoenicker, going by the very original names of Smith (Clancy Brown) and Wesson (Ted Levine), snooping around for the dirt on Philip because he failed Chester's spoilt brat son from his chemistry class. Follow the fun as Philip starts to come to grips with what his green goo can do, apart from sitting in his hand looking cute and making cute sounds. Green goo paste that makes big balls bounce a long way, radioactively-energised goo that can propel cars - in the air - and spray on green goo that can make anything bounce.

    Yes, really silly stuff indeed. Pretty much your prototypical Disney family film, it tries to hit all the right notes for success, but just fails to do so. Robin Williams is one of the true comic geniuses of film nowadays, as well as being a very fine straight actor. This is the sort of film where you could basically let him loose with all the visual humour that only a Robin Williams can bring to the screen. Director Les Mayfield apparently chose not to, and we end up with a slightly restrained, although still interesting, performance from the man. The rest of the cast is fairly typical Disney casting - mainly a collection of recognizable faces with no great star material and little name recognition. Solid if unspectacular performances all round. The special effects are quite decent here, apart from perhaps the flying car sequences, and this is indeed to be expected when you look at the long list of credits for the effects work.

    An amusing enough, if completely silly, film that will no doubt appeal highly to the younger set to which it is primarily aimed. Whilst you could certainly find better to indulge in, there are also a lot worse that could be chosen for playing in your DVD player.

Video

    The transfer is, as previously mentioned, a Pan & Scan transfer, and it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Those who regularly read my rantings about Buena Vista DVDs will be well aware that I believe that they have perfected the art of the mediocre DVD transfer. This is perhaps the first of those mediocre efforts that they released. The problem is primarily the inconsistency in the transfer. At times this is a very sharp, detailed transfer, at others a marginally soft transfer with a decidedly flat look to it. Since this is also a complaint about the Region 1 transfer, it is possible that this is a reflection of the source material and not a transfer issue. Shadow detail is quite decent, but nowhere near being exceptional despite the obvious opportunities for sublime detail. The transfer is clear and generally free of grain. There did not seem to be any problem with low level noise in the transfer.

    The overall colour palette is generally very good with a nice depth to the tones on offer. There is a generally nice vibrancy to the colours as is to be expected in a film aimed squarely at the younger set. Indeed, as far as the colours go, there is little to complain about here at all. Colour saturation seems to be just about right throughout the film. There are no problems with oversaturation at all, nor any issue with colour bleed.

    There are no significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There were a few issues with respect to film-to-video artefacts, including some noticeable telecine wobble at around 14:04. The other issue is a fairly consistent, albeit quite minor, problem with aliasing throughout where the usual suspects like the car appear on screen. There was not too much of problem with film artefacts, but they are present even if not too intrusive.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Dialogue was very clear and easy to understand. There did not appear to be any problems with audio sync in the transfer.

    The music score comes from Danny Elfman, and a slightly different style to his normal output it is. It is still instantly recognizable as a piece of his work despite that, and it is a suitably supportive score. The highlight of the score has to be the scene with all those little green blobs of goo doing a spectacular dance sequence straight out of one of those 1930s musicals.

    This is another example of a decent Dolby Digital 5.1 effort that perhaps does not shine quite as much as it should. The bass channel is somewhat restrained, as befits a film aimed at the younger set, and this results in some of the impact of the effects being diminished just a little. The surround channels are quite well-used though, with some nice usage at times in the rear channels, albeit not consistently. The best example is during the scene in the laboratory with the green goo bouncing all over the place - some nice directional effects in use here! The overall sound picture is good, with just a mild balance problem. Overall, there really is not much to complain about here, other than what we did not get.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

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© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
17th October 2000