Howard... une nouvelle race de héros

Though I knew of its infamy, I'd never actually sat down and watched "Howard The Duck" before, so noticing that it's currently available on Sky Movies, and with a spare evening, I thought now was the opportune time.

Howard (Jordan Prentice & Chip Zien (primarily)) from a planet where the duck, rather than monkey, was the dominate species, is transported across the Galaxy, to Earth, where, despite his appearance he connects with Beverly (Lea Thompson) a struggling rock singer. Their attempts to find a way for Howard to return to his own planet are assisted by Beverly's friend Phil (Tim Robbins), who brings in Dr. Jenning (Jeffrey Jones) but their research only results is something much worse being brought to Earth.

So, no. It's not good. Not good at all. Particularly for the first half. Tonally it's all over the place, with duck playboy magazine and the visit to the brothel feeling at odds with the PG Certificate. The plot takes an age to get going and the set pieces are dull or incomprehensible. The acting is terrible, from some pretty big names too - what is Tim Robbins doing? It's also not helped that time hasn't been kind to the very 80's sensibilities, from the awful band, to the massive hair, to the outfits that everyone wears to the weird Rock club, to the generic 80's street thugs.

But is its reputation as one of the worst films of all time actually warranted? Not really, of course it was a financial failure and essentially ended up costing Lucas Pixar, but those consequences shouldn't really be considered when appraising the movie. Does "The Shawshank Redemptions" initial financial failure affect people's opinions of that film? The second half of the movie is alright, when the plot finally starts. I actually quite like the effects for the evil overlords race, I'm a bit of a sucker for stop motion animation.

Whilst never approaching a level you would describe as "good" the film is, never the less, rather unfairly grouped in during the "worst of all time" conversations and Howard himself is overdue his full MCU reboot.

Howard the Duck is literally one of the first movies ever released about a Marvel character. And for that it really needs to be remembered. It's also a terrible movie and showed that maybe George Lucas was a little over rated but at the same time it can be rather entertaining if you stop and look at it a bit more closely.

This is based off the Marvel comics character called Howard who starred in his own comic book "Howard the Duck". The story goes that he's an anthropomorphic duck from a parallel universe where ducks are the dominant species who's transported to Earth against his will. Here he meets up with Beverly who eventually becomes his love interest and they go on lots of weird adventures together. The comic itself was a social satire employing parodies of genre fiction as well as using a bit of metanarrative to advance the story. So in other words he was meta before Deadpool took over that role.

And that's the problem. If you look carefully at the movie itself you can see that they were trying to recreate that world on the silver screen. The problem is movies of that type need to be a little more obvious because otherwise they get taken literally and that spells the death of the movie. Which is what happened here. A lot of things happen in the background and no attention is brought to them as they should. For example in the restaurant scene where Howard almost gets killed and grilled by the crazy cook. If you read the sign it was a place that specialized in Cajun and Sushi. Two foods that were considered very trendy in the 80's except they're being served together. It's a strange pairing and in the theme of the comic book it makes sense. Here? Most people miss it and the joke is lost.

That doesn't excuse it's many glaring faults however. The biggest of which is the costume. This was originally supposed to be an animated feature, at least that's what I've been able to dig up. And yet for some reason they just put a little person in a suit. Sure a case could be made that it gives Howard a true outsider aspect as nobody else looks like he does. But it doesn't excuse the fact that everytime I see him I just see a guy in a duck costume.

There are decent scenes, some good actors trying to put some life into this pile of whatsit and let's face it Lea Thompson looks great here. So while it's not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination it's not as bad as people make it out to be.

Considered one of the most notorious box-office flops in history (next to the 'Road to Morocco'-ripoff 'Ishtar' with Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty the following year), 'Howard the Duck' became the laughing stock of critics and movie-goers alike when it was released in theaters in 1986. If its executive producer, George Lucas, had his way, he would have canned that movie for good. But thanks to the home video boom in the 1980s, 'Howard' would follow suit and find his way into video stores across America.

Nearly twenty years later, 'Howard' is slowly being pulled from video store shelves. But it is now that a film of such poor quality can be truly appreciated.

Here's how it all goes down: You are dropped onto a planet from a far-away universe, where ducks are human-like and are running the world, only to be pulled out again moments later. An everyday working-duck by the name of Howard gets sucked out of his living room on his recliner after returning to his apartment after a long, hard day.

After the opening title is shown in the thundering tradition of cinematic heavyweights like '2001: A Space Odyssey', we see Howard's decent toward the planet Earth. Once he has reluctantly gotten his feet on the ground, he clashes with the dregs of society and saves the lead singer of an all-female punk band named Beverly, (played by 'Back to the Future's Lea Thompson). She tries to give him a hand, and help him get an explanation as to how he got sucked out of his living room and landed in Cleveland, Ohio.

That explanation never actually makes any sense, but that doesn't matter, because better plot developments hinge upon it. With the help of a goofy lab janitor Phil (played by the immortal Tim Robbins in an early comedic role) and a big time nuclear scientist Dr. Jennings (none other than Jeffery Jones), Howard finds out that a giant laser Jennings was using went haywire, and pulled Howard down instead. But going back isn't going to be so easy, because one of Dark Overlords of Evil hitched a ride on that laser, and has plans of planet domination and destruction. And who better than to save the day than the 3'1" (3'2", that is) wise-"quacking" title character, Howard T. Duck!

Although George Lucas got ripped apart for having his hands in this one, I have yet to see a movie that is so awful, so terribly bad that I have been brought to tears crying at simply recalling scenes from this flick. The opening sequences on the duck planet contain countless parodies of American pop culture, and Howard's implausible hurtle through space is enough to make even the most serious chuckle.

Audiences back in 1986 didn't seem to, however. But something about watching this flop nearly two decades later makes all of these scenes so much funnier. The way I see it, our teen generation now has a funny fascination with the decade in which they were born, the 80s, and anything from it has a distinctive look and sound. American pop culture was throwing away Three's Company for MTV, LPs for tapes, and the Bee Gees for the Brat Pack. The youth took yet another step in distancing themselves from their parents, and although they furthered that schism, they too felt a strong connection the past few decades. What was happening when I was in utero? Taking my first steps? Saying my first words?

Today's generation has 'Howard the Duck' as one of the most endangered time capsules of the 80s. You've got a one-of-a-kind performance by now Acadmey Award Winner Tim Robbins, whose his explanation of duck's evolutionary scale is priceless. George Lucas's own Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) special effects studio must be embarassed to have itself credited with the horrendous effects (the Dark Overlord, for one). You've got a helplessly catchy theme song, revelling in all of its cheesy 80s pop-synth glory.

The jokes are terrible, the dialogue sub-par, the plot laughable. But you know what, you'll laugh you a$$ off.

Join me in saving Howard from being pulled from video store shelves. Today's generation will love the waddling fowl more than the angry movie-goers who saw this dud in the theaters. Keep him alive!

HOWARD THE DUCK is one of those movies you have to see to believe.

A whopping boondoggle of sheer notoriety that replaced HEAVEN'S GATE as The Most Embarrassing Miscalculation In Hollywood History, this flick immediately humanized George Lucas; it proved that even he could make a bomb. And that's one of the things that makes it so fascinating--you just sit there, wondering what on earth the man was thinking.

I'm not going to write this with any intent of sarcastically ripping it to shreds, though. I'm going to attempt to both be fair and to express my opinion of it at the same time, mainly because I know that there *are* some folks out there who enjoy it for various reasons.

I'll be honest with you, the moment I heard Lucas was doing this film months in advance (and even then I was convinced the guy telling me was kidding until I saw an article for it in the paper), I rolled my eyes with disgust and didn't see it in the theatres. I saw it when a friend later rented it out of curiosity after it was rushed to video.

So what was it that suddenly possessed me to watch it? Well, I found out that my cousin was in it. You see, my cousin's name is Debbie Carrington (a.k.a. Debbie Lee Carrington), who was an Ewok in RETURN OF THE JEDI as well as a slew of other things, including but not limited to MEN IN BLACK, CAPTAIN EO, TOTAL RECALL (where she got to get on a table in a blonde wig and blast people with a machine gun) and on THE DREW CAREY SHOW ("Mini-Mimi"). So, naturally, I wanted to see this one because I learned of her involvement in it after the fact.

Most people loathe this film, but some like it simply because it's *so* weird in its badness while others genuinely love it for whatever reason. And that's okay. Actually, I kind of got a kick out of it and all its silliness the first time I saw it. We tried to watch it a second time, though, and were bored by it half the way through.

I just now saw it again for the first time since then.

One of the most bizarre things about this movie is how cheap it looks. For all the gobs of cash wasted on it (a record sum), HOWARD THE DUCK looks terrible. And no, I'm not talking about just the duck costume; I'm talking about the overall film, which looks exactly like a low-budget special made for television. Seriously, that's exactly how it looks, and I have no clue as to where the budget went to. I once wondered if it was used to desperately convince the stars involved to be in it, but I doubt it.

And meanwhile... speaking of the stars, I've got to hand it to Lea Thompson. Despite all the oddness here and all the stuff she is asked to do, she handles it all like a real trooper. In fact, this may be the bravest performance she's ever done, especially the bed scene. It also apparently didn't kill her career, thank God. Even though her character isn't at all fitting for a Big City Punkette, critics have nevertheless pointed out that she's still appealing here in her role as Beverly, and I agree. Meanwhile, Jeffery Jones gives quite possibly the strangest performance he's ever done, which is also an oddly effective one.

The biggest problem with the film is its mechanically coy, self-conscious script that has commercialized to death all of the original comic's appeal out of the final result (so what ELSE is new, Hollywood? ;) ). The movie can't decide whether it wants to follow the original concept or sweeten it up to supposedly appeal to a wider audience, and it is badly confused as a result. The movie desperately wants to protect its investment, so much so that the life has been choked out of it. Also, it has a *huge* amount of blah, unimaginatively generic lines ("No more Mr. Nice Duck", "You'll never get away with this", etc.).

But these days, it does have a ridiculous kind of flaky charm, partially because it's such an unbelievable anti-achievement and because it's so incredibly Eighties that it serves as a strong time capsule. And for those reasons and more, HOWARD THE DUCK has earned a place in twentieth century culture.

"Howard the Duck" was a critical and commercial failure when it was first released in the summer of 1986. Since that time, the movie has become synonymous with one word: BOMB. However, while it is not a very good film, I feel "Howard the Duck" is not nearly as bad as many people seem to believe.

How can you dislike a film about a midget duck from another planet who (with the help of Lea Thompson and her gigantic '80s hair) saves Earth from impending doom? Not only that, but the menace threatening Earth is the Dark Overlord of the Universe, an evil force that has invaded the body of Jeffery Jones! "Howard the Duck" is one of those movies that is enjoyable in a mindless way. It is by no means classic cinema, but if you are in the right frame of mind, it is very fun to watch.

And don't miss the musical number at the end, when Howard and the cast do the "duck waddle"!