Review of Howard the Duck (1986) by Justin C — 13 May 2010

If infamy won accolades, Howard the Duck would sweep the Oscars, Golden Globes, People's Choice Awards, and I'll throw in the Tonys for good measure, every year. If derision were worth its weight in gold, you wouldn't be able to lift the DVD. Long considered George Lucas' greatest folly, this multimillion-dollar oddity opened to international bewilderment back in 1986, and has since entered the lexicon as the penultimate example of Hollywood clumsiness. Often mentioned in the same hushed tones as such toxic disasters as Batman & Robin, Battlefield Earth, or Ishtar, Howard the Duck, a fantasy about a cigar-chomping, anthropomorphic duck who arrives from outer space to reluctantly battle evil, has, for nearly a quarter of a century now served as the focal point of eye-rolling mockery for critics and audiences alike. Whatever the intended purpose of the film was, most people, it seems, just didn't -- and still don't -- get it.

And now I am going to turn this review around and tell you that most people, it seems, are idiots.

Howard the Duck opens with its titular upright, talking duck entering his apartment after what we assume is a hard day at work. He listens to his answering machine messages as he pops open a beer, feeds his fish, plops in front of the TV, and is subsequently struck by an intergalactic tractor beam and sucked through his building and into outer space. Don't you hate it when that happens? Howard zooms past galaxies, nebulae, and planets as a narrator explains to us that the cosmos is mysterious and before long we see the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey twisting in the ether as Howard slams into it, causing it to explode, and thus revealing the title text.

In other words, hell of an opening.

I'm going to speak outside my experience and assume that Cleveland, Ohio would be a bit of a letdown after having been exposed to the celestial spheres, but that's precisely where the movie dumps him; right in Cleveland, right in the 80's. After escaping leather-clad punks and biker gangs, Howard ends up befriending Beverly Switzer (Leah Thompson), a singer in a local rock band who doesn't seem to mind that he's a, well, a duck and takes him under her wing (ho-ho). In an attempt to discover the cause of Howard's plight, she convinces the extraterrestrial mallard to visit her friend Phil (Tim Robbins. Yes, that Tim Robbins) who works as a janitor at a natural history museum, just don't tell Phil that.

The movie kind of hems and haws a bit and Howard and Bev have their obligatory argument and split up and Howard is left a lonely duck out in the world. Everyone from the unemployment office to bag ladies are unable to deal with a talking duck. Well, of course Howard and Beverly get back together, and that's when Phil introduces his friend Dr. Jenning (Jeffrey Jones, yes that Jeffrey Jones), who thinks he understands how Howard got to earth, and knows how to send him back, and thus we enter Act II of the movie.

How Howard got here and all the quasi-scientific mumbo-jumbo nonsense of how he may or may not get back isn't really relevant to the purpose of this review. What you need to know is that when Dr. Jenning fires up a test run on his intergalactic tractor beam, something goes horribly wrong and it probably doesn't bode well when he starts blowing things up with his eyes and calling himself the Dark Overlord of the Universe.

Howard the Duck is a movie about a talking duck from outer space, and as such, it is the finest film yet made on the subject. As far as its reputation goes, I'm not quite certain what, exactly, people were expecting from a film with such a title, but I guess it's just a concept that people couldn't grasp and whether it's above them or below them depends on where you're standing. What is inarguable is the joy and craftsmanship that was clearly put into it. This is a grade-A production for its time, and many of the special effects still hold true. Personally, I never imagined a movie called Howard the Duck to be anything other than fun, and that is precisely what it is. Dumb, yes. Ridiculous, you bet. But it's no sillier than, say, Rambo II, a pretentious killfest of the same era that demands to be taken seriously, and was by a great number of people.

I've decided that I'm going to rate this movie what I think it deserves and not allow the past quarter-century of conventional wisdom decide for me. I know bad movies, and Howard the Duck may very well be one. I just simply can't hate it. I like it too much. There's nothing serious about Howard the Duck, nor should there be. What fool would walk into this nonsense and expect anything but nonsense? I don't expect there to be consensus on how to make a movie about a talking space duck, but, unlike the rest of Earth, I'm pretty content to stick with this one until someone comes up with something better.

Do I smell a remake? I wouldn't hold my breath.

SCORE: 8 / 10.