Review of Howard the Duck (1986) by Jason D — 14 Mar 2009

Howard the Duck, which could easily signify the beginning of George Lucas' downfall, is based on the somewhat amusing Marvel comic about a duck from an alternate duck universe that gets shot to Earth where things get wacky and he befriends a bad Madonna impersonation, her bozo scientist/janitor friend, and some silly dark overlord from another dimension.

Seriously though, as enjoyable as this film may be to some, it is a complete meltdown of what the 80's stood for. It takes the terrific and spunky elements of 80's films and smashes them together into some kind of conjoined and retarded slapstick satire of itself.

I can't completely diss this movie, as I was a huge fan of it in my youth, but after having watched it today at the ripe old age of 26, I can clearly see why people dubbed this a disaster. I'm also shocked at the large amount of inappropriateness within this PG rated film (refer to the bed scene where star Lea Thompson comes dangerously close to being naked).

Aside from Thompson, there is an early performance from Tim Robbins, who is just AWFUL in this film. The best quality about this film is the performance from Jeffery Jones, who shows up halfway through the movie and completely steals it from everyone else.

The recent release to DVD has a remarkable remastering that makes the movie look as though it were filmed this year, but that is obviously not true considering just how dated the actual movie is. This would have worked much better as an 85 minute movie and not nearly 2 damn hours long!!! Not bad for its time, maybe even ahead of its time, but definitely behind the times nowadays, but still oddly enjoyable and fun in a small way.