Having never truly seen the full movie until now, I was unaware that Wil Wheaton played a role in this. Not that he had much to do, but it's still neat that genius-boy Wesley Crusher was in this mad-scientist adventure, I guess. (Too bad his role here is no genius.)

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Robin Williams carries the script, as one might expect. Most scenes with him are pretty great, despite an inexplicable blue light reflected in his glasses in nearly every closeup.

Overall, however, I don't think the script holds up very well. It's hard to put my finger on why, though it might be largely thanks to a cast of one-dimensional characters. We don't actually get to see much of Philip's relationship with Sarah; it's thrust upon us as a plot device, to give him a reason for all the silly stunts with the flubber later in the movie. Even Hoenicker is a walking, talking plot device—an excuse for that flubber-boosted "battle" in the library.

I'll just blame the script's many shortcomings on its age and origins. This is ultimately a remake of an adaptation, following a 1961 film (_The Absent-Minded Professor_) that was itself based on a short story from 1943. I'm not surprised at all that a 90-minute film based on a story from a 1940s magazine would have trouble presenting a compelling narrative. Certainly, it's _been_ done, but it's hard. And in this case, there's an obvious "Disney remake" factor, too. That ol' Disney, always trying to make another buck off its own past material…