Robin Williams’ Worst Movie Chosen By Critics Is Not Flubber
Robin Williams' most critically panned movie, Old Dogs, is far and away the late stars worst film according to critics.
Robin Williams’ worst movie, according to critics on Rotten Tomatoes, has been determined and while the results were close, the ultimate winner (loser?) is Old Dogs, his family comedy with John Travolta. The film is about two friends Dan (Williams) and Craig (Travolta) that run a successful sports-marketing business, but their life is upended when Dan’s ex from a very short marriage, returns and surprises him with a pair of twins. Through a series of sitcom-level hijinks, Dan has to move into Craig’s condo with two kids that he has never met before.
As if that surface level description does not sound bad enough, Old Dogs ends up involving remote-controlled suits, jetpacks, a gorilla holding John Travolta hostage, and an attack by penguins. Bravely attempting to make this script watchable alongside Robin Williams and Travolta are Kelly Preston, Lori Loughlin, Seth Green, Bernie Mac, Matt Dillon, and the overqualified uncredited roles of Dax Shepard, Luis Guzman, and Justin Long. One of William’s children is actually played by Ella Bleu Travolta, John Travolta’s real-life daughter with Kelly Preston.
Overall, critics had nothing good to say about the film, with Roger Ebert being particularly harsh saying “Old Dogs is stupefying (sic) dimwitted. What were John Travolta and Robin Williams thinking of? Apparently their agents weren’t perceptive enough to smell the screenplay in its advanced state of decomposition.”
Despite critics hating the film financially, Old Dogs was a success, with a budget of $35 million and a domestic box office haul of just under $50 million. Overseas, the film doubled the box office, bringing in a total of $96 million followed by an extra $20 million through DVD sales. So while Robin Williams has had better received films, Old Dogs is shockingly a decent money maker on the late star’s resume.
A close contender for worst Robin Williams film, with a rotten rating of 17%, is Jack, a poignant film about a child suffering from a rare disease causing him to rapidly age. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, seriously, the film was a surprise number one during its debut weekend with a haul of $11 million. Amazingly, before getting to Flubber, there’s two more critically reviled films featuring the Aladdin star, Patch Adams and Man of the Year.
Patch Adams, featuring Robin Williams as a doctor that treats his patients with humor, has developed a strange cult following that may or may not be partially ironic. Critics did not appreciate the plot, considering it to be far-fetched and insulting, with the film coming after an award-winning performance in Good Will Hunting. From 1995 through 1999, Williams had multiple movies arriving in theaters, starring in most of them and supporting in the rest, which led to the star being severely overexposed and his films receiving diminishing returns.
That period of time nearly ended Robin Williams’ career before he turned to dramatic roles and revitalized his public persona, primarily thanks to the indie film One-Hour Photo, the thriller Insomnia, and cult classic Death to Smoochy. The goodwill built up by the early-aughts period of dramatic, villainous roles was flushed down the toilet with the release of Old Dogs, making the family comedy even more disappointing than it would have been had it been released a decade earlier. So no, Flubber is not the star’s worst movie, as bad and disappointing as that film was, it still doesn’t feature jetpacks, hostage taking gorillas, and attack penguins.
