Things have been tough in recent weeks, between elections, hurricanes, and the daily grind of my personal life.  Through it all, God is there for me.  I began The Legionnaire in response to God’s presence and what I discerned Him calling me to do with the skills I have gained over the years.  Some watch movies as an escape.  For me, it is more of a matter of cataloging with the hope of helping your moral character.  What we see in moving pictures can have an effect on not only our attitudes but on our souls.  Despite most films being predictable, I still find it hard to make it through the material when I know it is displaying material that can lead people astray, including myself.  For this reason, I try to space out the more salacious selections with wholesome entertainment.  Because of my general malaise of late, I naturally turned to Disney+.  A lot of what they have to offer is unoriginal, like today’s entry, Flubber (1997), but I know I can come away from it feeling good.  There are better movies than the one today, but it gave me what I needed in this moment.

If you are familiar with 1961’s The Absent-Minded Professor, then Flubber’s first few minutes will appear eerily similar. One slight deviation is showing Professor Philip Brainard (Robin Williams) being awakened by an army of machines of his invention, chief among them being the floating, talking robot head that is Weebo (voiced by Jodi Benson).  What remains constant in this one from its predecessor is that Professor Brainard is due to be married to the president of the failing Medfield College, Dr. Sara Jean Reynolds (Marcia Gay Harden).  Because of his forgetfulness, when they see each other, after bemoaning the state of the school’s finances, she makes him promise to be at the Presbyterian church for their wedding that day at 6:30 pm.  It is a shame it is not a Catholic church, but such is life.  Inevitably, he gets engrossed in his work.  Even with part of his tuxedo already on, he still does not remember to leave for the ceremony.  The omission is helped by Weebo, who conveniently does not remind him at the appropriate time.  When Professor Brainard finally checks his watch, it is 6:30 am on the following morning.  In the meantime, he has invented the eponymous substance, a gelatinous green goo that is lighter than air, can shape shift at will, and has some level of sentience.  With all these experimentations going on, the man who essentially owns the university, Chester Hoenicker (Raymond J. Barry), is disappointed when his son, Bennett Hoenicker (Wil Wheaton), comes home frustrated by poor grades.  The one Bennett blames for his struggles, despite the obvious lack of effort, is Professor Brainard.  Chester, being somewhat of a gangster, sends two of his thugs to have words with the academic.  They arrive just as Professor Brainard is tinkering with his newfound wonder substance, causing a bowling ball and golf ball to careen out of control and knock out the henchmen.  With a weekend’s worth of testing complete, he takes the substance to Dr. Reynolds and tries to convince her that it will be what saves the school.  His attempt fails when he purposely jumps out of a second story window expecting to bounce back up to her, only to have the flubber decide to vacate his pocket.  Back in his basement laboratory, he comes up with an idea of harnessing his new invention and putting it in the engine of his car, turning it into a flying machine.  With a worried Weebo along for the ride, Professor Brainard takes it to Dr. Reynolds’ home in time to see his romantic rival, Wilson Croft (Christopher McDonald), saying goodnight to Dr. Reynolds.  The parting comes with a plan for Wilson to take her to Rutland College, his school, for the basketball game against Medfield.  If Medfield wins, it will be dinner afterwards.  If Rutland is victorious, he proposes that they spend the weekend together.  Wanting to prevent the latter outcome, with a little inspiration from Weebo, Professor Brainard comes up with the idea of using his bouncy substance to help Medfield’s inept basketball team triumph.  While this part of the scheme works in his favor, Dr. Reynolds remains distant.  On hand to see the contest, and to bet against Medfield, is Chester.  Though he loses his wager, anyone can see there is something suspicious going on with the winning side.  It also helps that he sees Professor Brainard’s flying car float past on his way home.  Once there, Professor Brainard opens up to Weebo about how much he misses Dr. Reynolds.  Having made a recording of his confession, Weebo brings it Dr. Reynolds.  She is touched by his sentiment and decides to forgive him.  Them making amends also affords the opportunity for him to tell her about flubber.  Seeing its potential, they decide to take it to the Ford Motor Company, apparently getting all the money they could ever need to save the school.  After parking their car in the garage, they enter his house to find it ransacked once more by Chester’s goons.  Professor Brainard also locates a battered Weebo, who gives a clue to a backup copy she made of herself before she switches off permanently.  She had been trying to prevent the theft of the flubber, but took a baseball bat to the dome for her trouble.  Professor Brainard and Dr. Reynolds head for Chester’s expansive mansion.  Predictably, they find Wilson working with Chester, but Professor Brainard and Dr. Reynolds use a variety of flubber materials to retrieve the green goo and save Medfield.  We end with their wedding, though this time Dr. Reynolds allows Professor Brainard to remain in his lab during the ceremony, using Weebo’s “daughter,” Weebette (voiced by Julie Morrison), to stand in for him.

All of what happens in Flubber, as mentioned towards the beginning of the last paragraph, is akin to its predecessor, The Absent-Minded Professor.  What separates Flubber is Weebo.  It becomes evident early on that the robot is romantically interested in her creator, and please note how difficult of a phrase that is for a Catholic to write.  It is hard to say because she is not human, a fact that is underscored in the film.  And before you start wondering why I would assign her a gender, that was done for me.  At one point, wanting to comfort Professor Brainard over his frustrations with winning back Dr. Reynolds, Weebo searches the internet for ideal female forms.  She comes up with a holographic projection of herself she names Sylvia (Leslie Stefanson), and later suggests that Weebette is her and Professor Brainard’s child.  It is a strange twist that invites questions for which Catholicism has some answers.  The first thing to say about Weebo is that she is a form of artificial intelligence (AI).  In recent years, like Weebo, AI has come to mimic real life in ways we might recognize as genuine.  What separates AI is the fact that it is not made by God but by humans.  It may have all the hallmarks of being like you and me, but only God can imbue life with that thing that makes us different from other animals: a soul.  It is that spirit within us that God desires and which we owe Him at the end of our earthly lives.  It is also something that AI, like any other machine or lower lifeform, lacks.  Professor Brainard deals with this thought in the aftermath of Weebo’s terminating blow.  He asks Dr. Reynolds what happens to the soul of a machine.  He is answered when he finds her backup file.  As this is something flesh and blood cannot do, it shows just how precious are our lives.  They are redeemed only by God.

Sadly, there is no redeeming Flubber.  It is not a bad movie in the sense that it has objectionable material, outside of the art class into which Professor Brainard bumbles where two people are posing nude.  Thankfully, nothing is shown.  Otherwise, there is no originality in this one when compared to its predecessor, except for color and Weebo.