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Film Clips
DECEMBER 8, 1997:
 FLUBBER. In this remake of The Absent Minded Professor,
Robin Williams plays the Fred MacMurray role not just absent-humoredly,
but with that saccharine vocal lilt he always uses in kids' movies--the
one that makes him sound like he's trying to reassure a baby.
The flubber itself is anthropomorphized to the point where it
becomes a Gummi human, thus saving us the tedious task of imagining
its personality ourselves. Then there's Weebo, an intelligent
flying robot/secretary whose crush on Williams is, to be honest,
rather sick. Basically, everything in Flubber is blibber-blubber.
Screenwriter John Hughes and his team of corporate filmmakers
have turned the once-charming Disney story into an effects-dominated
rehash that's lost nearly all of its bounce. --Woodruff
KISS OR KILL. Just in case you haven't seen enough variations
on the young-lovers-on-the-run movie, here's one set in the desolate
Australian outback. The twist is that the lovers, played by Matt
Day and Frances O'Conner (both last seen in Love and Other
Catastrophes), have good reason to suspect each other of the
throat-slitting murders that mysteriously occur wherever they
go. Though the film feels cool, with its grainy cinematography,
enigmatic minor characters and listless narration, it's loosely
executed to a fault. Key narrative elements are left so sketchy,
so "whatever," that suspense drains through the cracks.
Somebody please tell director Bill Bennett that excessive jump
cuts and other forms of purposeful sloppiness no longer qualify
as style. --Woodruff
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