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Flubber (1997)
"Flubber" flubs it.
This remake of Disney's 1961 classic, "The Absent-Minded Professor", stars Robin Williams as Professor Philip Brainard, who invents a hyperelastic polymer which returns more energy than is put into it. This basically means that if you throw it at something, it will bounce back harder than you threw it. He names his invention "Flubber" (flying rubber).
For reasons never explained, Flubber's amazing hyper-elasticity also allows it to hover, change course in mid-air and dance the mambo. And in a remarkable stroke of luck for Hollywood's legions of character animators, Flubber is also intelligent and imbued with a lively and playful personality.
No Disney movie these days is complete without a cute little sidekick-who-messes-things-up-but-then-saves-the-day. In "Flubber" this role is played by "Weebo", a flying pet robot that Brainard invented. Strangely enough, while scientists, car companies and bad guys are all getting excited about flubber's potential for flying, no one seems to give a passing thought to Weebo's fully functional Artificial Intelligence and apparent mastery of antigravity.
Okay. so Disney films aren't meant to be physics dissertations, but it would have been nice if at least one of Newton's laws of motion had survived more than three minutes beyond Flubber's first appearance. If you wonder why your kid is failing science, look no further.
Robin Williams is wasted in this movie. He has few, if any, good lines, and his hyperactive humour never seems to go much beyond dodging flubber-propelled projectiles.
If you enjoy watching glassware get smashed up and seeing bad guys get hit on the head with bowling balls -- repeatedly -- then maybe you'll enjoy "Flubber".
Personally, I preferred the original.
Blue Steel (1990)
Put your brain in long-term parking for this one. (mild spoiler)
Jamie Lee Curtis plays officer Megan Turner, a rookie cop who kills an armed robber her first day on the job. During the commotion, one of the witnesses, Eugene Hunt, a Wall St. gold trader played by Ron Silver, snatches the robber's gun and, faster than you can say "junk bonds", turns into a psychopathic serial killer with an obsessive fixation on both the gun and Turner.
The total absence of intelligence in this movie makes it painful to watch. Even after Hunt murders her closest friend on her doorstep, Turner continues to spend her evenings at her apartment, never bothering to so much as check the place out for intruders. So it comes as little shock when Hunt is there waiting for her one night.
No one else in the movie manages to demonstrate an IQ higher than their age, either: a supermarket clerk, after being threatened by a gun-wielding maniac for five long, tedious minutes, replete with threats to "blow him away", later, under police questioning, says that the weapon might have been a knife. The only reason for such staggering stupidity is that it was necessary to force an unwilling script kicking and screaming down an unlikely plot-line.
So stay away from this one, folks. It's not even bad enough to be funny.