Review of Howard the Duck (1986) by Robin W — 07 Jun 2009

Believe it or not, there was once a time when people believed that everything George Lucas touched would turn to gold and it was inconceivable that he could be the executive producer of one of the biggest flops in Hollywood history, which will forever be filed in "what the hell were thinking?" archives of movie lore.

To be fair, the movie is a pretty amusing time capsule of the 1980s and the sense of nostalgia saves it from being completely unwatchable, but it wears out its welcome pretty quickly and even the horrible Mr.

Freeze puns in "Batman & Robin" weren't as obnoxious as the horrible duck-related puns ("No one laughs at the master of Quack Fu") on display here; the few genuine laughs are provided by the sarcastic voice work of Chip Zien as Howard, but unfortunately, the duck ends up out-acting most of his human co-stars (this early performance by Tim Robbins will never be shown on his career highlight reel).

One also has to wonder what audience this movie was aimed for as it's mostly presented as a kid's movie, but delivers such creepy moments as a female duck with a boobs and a near-sex scene between the duck and Lea Thompson - whose character takes to the idea WAY too casually!