Review of Howard the Duck (1986) by Joe S — 18 Mar 2009

How wildly misguided can ya' get? A movie meant for kids featuring bare (duck) breasts, sex clubs, near rape, and a hero who likes to read the duck planet's equivilent to Playboy (How exactly did I get away with watching this 20 times as a little one?). Thomas Dolby songs mixed with a super serious (perhaps ironically so) score by John "I just got the Oscar for Out of Africa and compose for James f***ing Bond" Barry. An alien wandering around a city where he's the only thing that talks and acts like anything resembling a human (And no, it's not to make a poignant statement. This is Howard the Duck, remember?). Who exactly was this made for again?

Still, it's more consistently entertaining (for the occasional right reason, but mostly the wrong reasons) than flicks that just stick to the playbook. Jeffrey Jones and Tom Robbins look like they're having a ball, and there's something enjoyable about the way the movie's constantly unconvincing from the sets of the first half that always remind the viewer they're looking at a sound stage to the mess of optical effects at the end. At least the flying sequence is solid on its own.

And hey, no movie with a keytar and Richard Kiley doing unfittingly epic voiceover work can be automatically dreadful. Spare at no expense, indeed.