Howard the Duck

PLOT (spoiler alert!!!):

Howard (voiced by Chip Zien) lives on Duckworld, a planet just like Earth but inhabited by anthropomorphic ducks. One night, as he reads the latest issue of Playduck Magazine, his armchair begins to quake violently and propels him out of his apartment building and into outer space, where he eventually lands up on Earth, in Cleveland, Ohio. Upon arriving, Howard encounters a girl being attacked by thugs and decides to help her out with his unique brand of “Quack Fu”. After the thugs scamper, the girl introduces herself as Beverly (Lea Thompson), and decides to take Howard to her apartment and let him spend the night. The next day, Beverly takes Howard to a supposed-scientist by the name of Phil Blumburtt (Tim Robbins), who Beverly hopes can help Howard return to his world. After Phil is revealed to be only a lab assistant, Howard resigns himself to life on Earth and rejects Beverly’s aid. With the help of a no-nonsense secretary (Virginia Capers), he soon lands a job cleaning up at a local romantic spa. Due to unfair treatment by his boss (Sheldon Feldner), Howard ultimately quits his job and returns to Beverly, who plays in a band called Cherry Bomb. At the club where Cherry Bomb is performing, Howard comes across the group’s sleazy manager (Richard Edson), and confronts the manager when he badmouths the band. A fight ensues in which Howard is victorious, before getting the manager to force Cherry Bomb out of their unfair contract.

Howard rejoins Beverly backstage after the band’s performance, gives the band their money and accompanies Beverly back to the apartment, where Beverly chooses Howard to be Cherry Bomb’s new manager. The two begin to flirt and joke at the idea of sexual intercourse, but are interrupted when Blumburtt and two of his colleagues, Dr. Walter Jenning (Jeffrey Jones) and Larry (David Paymer), arrive and reveal how Howard came to Earth: earlier, the scientists had been working on a dimensional-jumping device that just happened to be aimed at Howard’s universe and brought him to Earth when it was activated. They theorize that Howard can be sent back to his world through a reversal of this same process, so they drive Howard to the lab with the intention of sending him back. The device malfunctions upon being used a second time, and Jenning’s body is taken over by a lifeform from a region of space called the Nexus of Sominus. When the police arrive, the resulting chaos leads Howard, Beverly and Jenning to escape from the police as Jenning’s transformation becomes more apparent. After eluding the police, they arrive at a Cajun sushi diner where the lifeform introduces itself as a “Dark Overlord of the Universe” and demonstrates its developing mental powers by causing the table condiments to explode. Chaos ensues when a group of truckers in the diner begin to insult Howard, resulting in a fight. This results in Howard’s capture and near-decapitation at the hands of the diner chef. Meanwhile, the truckers are scared off when the Dark Overlord destroys the cafe, kidnaps Beverly, and escapes in a semi truck.

Howard then finds Phil and frees him from the police car he had been held in after being arrested for his role in the science center explosion. On the run, the two discover an Ultralight aircraft, which they use to search for the Dark Overlord and Beverly. Meanwhile, having returned to the lab, the Dark Overlord ties Beverly down to a metal bed, hoping to transfer another one of its kind into her body with the dimension machine. Howard and Phil return to the lab and apparently destroy the Dark Overlord with an experimental “neutron disintegrator” laser. However, it had only been knocked out of Jennings’ body. The then Dark Overlord reveals itself as a monstrous creature. Howard fires the neutron disintegrator at the beast, obliterating it, and destroys the dimension machine, preventing more Dark Overlords from being brought to Earth, but also removing Howard’s only chance of returning to his planet. Howard then becomes Beverly’s manager and hires Phil as an employee on her tour.

REVIEW:

Often viewed as one of the worst films ever made, Howard the Duck has eluded me for quite some time. Well, since it is being taken down tomorrow, I figured why not give it a shot today.

For those of you wondering if it really is worthy of being called “the worst film ever made” I wouldn’t say that, mainly because I’ve seen much worse than this. However, that doesn’t mean that this thing is any good.

First off, there is a bit of a controversy revolving around the fact that this was live action as opposed to animated. While I think that it would have worked better in animated form, it wasn’t the worst part of the flick. The main reason they said this was because Howard didn’t look “believable”. Fact is,  there is no difference between his look and that of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in their movie (which was released 4 years later, btw),  and pretty much any movie character created by Jim Henson. For goodness sakes, he’s a giant duck, people! Get over it!

Howard is not a likable character. As a matter of fact, he’s kind of a douche. If you’re a fan of Family Guy, you might notice that he is similar to Brian.

I wish I could say that this was some kind of riveting story with great special effects, but it isn’t. This story makes no sense and is pretty close to an insult to the audience’s intelligence. Couple that with the shoe horned in space villain (which was one of the other good things about the film, once he showed his true form), and you just wonder why it is that George Lucas put his name on it.

As far as the effects go, they are pretty much the norm for mid 80s cinema, which is fine with me, but I can imagine someone has issue with how cheesy and fake they look. The Dark Overlord, in his true form, could be quite the menacing beast, which makes him the perfect antithesis to Howard.

The humans that Howard encounters aren’t exactly the most memorable. Lea Thompson is a cutie, but she just seemed so wooden and unfeeling here that I had trouble with her character. Jeffrey Jones seems like he was going to be a villain, but turned out to be a good guy, until he was taken over by an alien life form, which actually made for the best performance of the film, if you ask me.

I guess when all is said and done, it has to be said that Howard the Duck isn’t the worst film, but there are plenty of reasons to think so. I won’t say it is the worst, but it sure is down there in the gutter. There are very few redeeming elements and when it was over, I found myself wondering why I wasted the time to watch. Other than morbid curiosity, I honestly don’t know why, but I can say that you would be best served avoiding this thing like the plague.

1 1/2 out of 5 stars