Howard the Duck (1986)

An advertising consultant named Howard (Chip Zien is the voice, Ed Gale is the man in the suit) is pulled from his home planet of Duckworld, a world inhabited by aliens that evolved from ducks instead of apes. While trying to get his bearings he meets a young woman in trouble and rescues her from being attacked by thugs. The woman's name is Beverly (Lea Thompson), who is stuck in a struggling all female band called the Cherry Bombs. She tries to help the alien find his way back home by calling her friend Phil (Tim Robbins...yeah he was in this) who invited his colleague Dr. Jenning (Jeffrey Jones) to explain the situation and rectify it. As they attempt to make second contact with the fowl planet (yeah, a bird pun is something you will see a lot of in this) they invite another alien in. Something far worse than they could have imagined. It is up to Howard to save this new world from certain destruction, while still trying to get back home.

Yeah, this movie is known for being horrible, but due to a new movie that came out I thought this review fit for the day. I know a lot of people would argue that a movie like this would fit well in the "So bad, it is good" crowd; but, since I am a member of that crowd I can't agree. This movie is just straight up bad. I never thought I would see so many bird/duck named things in my life. When they replace boy/girl/man/woman with duck it makes since and turns out to be cute, like when he is reading an issue of "Playduck" for instance. When they just add duck to random things it is irritating, like why is his planet called "Duckworld?" Did the scientists on that planet lack creativity? That isn't the really baffling thing here though. The really weird thing is that this movie got away with a PG rating. By today's standards if you show a naked duck in a bathroom with what are supposed to be humanoid breasts they would slap at least a PG13 on you. I guess it was a different time or whatever, but still their are some very raunchy bits in this movie. The story line here is basically a working class version of "ET," with a little bit of accidental hero thrown in. Nothing special, had a possibility to be great but squandered it on.... well everything in this movie.

This movie has (very obviously) not aged well. There are some movies you can look past that with like "Jurassic Park" or "Back to the Future," but since this movie was bad to begin with it is hard to take it seriously. If you were born in my generation or later you would wonder if this was a straight to home video release (or what the people of my era and earlier called a "V" "H" "S"). Nope this movie had a full theatrical release and, allegedly had some sort of budget (supposedly 35 million was put towards this garbage). When released this movie was considered to be the largest black mark on George Lucas' career. The director, Willard Huyck hasn't found work since this movie saw the light of day. It is almost like they didn't watch this movie before they released it, and just thought that the comic book name attached would drive all the sales....weird.

The real tragedy here was the acting... I mean the middle school rendition of what acting would probably look like when the students grew up one day. Does anyone remember Lea Thompson? She was big back in the mid 80's early 90's, and her most notable work was the "Back to the Future" franchise. I find it interesting to think about what would have possessed her to do something like this. She had a bright career ahead of her (like Molly Ringwald), and in between major blockbusters she does things like this, "Dennis the Menace," and "The Beverly Hillbillies" movie. Just like in this movie, she should fire her agent. After that I saw Tim Robbins was in this hell as well. I guess he and Jeffrey Jones were the only people attached to this to get out with a career. Which is a surprise given their performances. In case anyone was wondering Jeffrey Jones was the principal in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," he had some more appearances in big movies but kind of faded away.

The real thing that killed this movie for me wasn't that it was based off an interesting/kind of funny comic book, it was the eighties. The eighties smeared it's residue all over this movie, making it not only bad for it's time but bad for all times to follow. I know this is the same "not aging well" argument, but I just can't stand a movie where every single bad decision of that decade is captured in film. The music was trying to be "The Runaways" but failed, horribly and was still the center piece of the film (besides the duck). The hairstyles, the fashion, the technology. I can take a movie with bad graphics being allowed to see the light of day, they worked with what they had; but, this movie is a big time stamp from the eighties. The movie the eighties wished never happened, but it did.

Final Verdict: 1 out of 5 There was nothing really serviceable in this movie, I couldn't laugh at the movie for being so horrible, I couldn't enjoy the movie for being good. This was just bad, but if you want to see what happened to some people's careers or George Lucas' biggest embarrassment, go ahead and check it out.



*Spoiler warning: for a movie that is currently playing*
Well I guess it isn't hard to realize what this spoiler warning is for. "Guardians of the Galaxy" had a gag at the end of the movie this time, instead of keeping us on the line for future projects. Instead of showing more Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, or giving some blueprints to Ultron they showed a CGI Howard the Duck talking to The Collector. This was a gag by Marvel, and I am almost positive they have no plans to release another movie of Howard the Duck (probably since there are still people alive that remember this garbage). I thought that you all should see Hollywood's first attempt at doing the character, and I thought this was the most relevant old movie to review. There is your reasoning as to why I reviewed "Howard the Duck."