Howard the Duck

I'm running out of superhero movies to review, so I went to iTunes to rent some early, horrible superhero movies. Technically speaking, Howard the Duck was the first major Marvel movie. It came out in 1986, after George Lucas, yes the George Lucas decided to team up with some of his film school friends to adapt his favorite comic book. They originally wanted to do an animated movie, but contractual obligations required them to make it live action. Lucas was the producer, Willard Huyck was the director (this was the last movie he directed, coincidentally), Chip Zien provided the voice of Howard, Lea Thompson (Marty's mom in Back to the Future) played his girlfriend, and Jeffrey Jones was the scientist-turned bad guy.

Normally, when I review movies, I start with a score of 5 out of 10 and add or take away points throughout the movie. And in my post, I usually only talk about the points I reward or deduct. But in a movie this bad, I could have started with a 10 and it would've ended up with a 0 anyway. Also, I think my primary audience isn't very familiar with this movie, so I'll just provide a synopsis and explain what's wrong with it on the way.

Our story begins on Duckworld, which is shaped like a giant egg and has two moons (reminiscent of Star Wars). We don't spend much time on Duckworld, but we are exposed to every duck-related pun imaginable — the worst was a poster for "Breeders of the Lost Stork" with a duck dressed as Indiana Jones. Howard starts channel surfing, and there are actually a couple of funny moments from his duck TV, and we get the sense that this is a nice, fun kids movie. But then Howard lights a cigar to enjoy his latest issue of Playduck magazine, and we actually see some duck boobs. What? Why? How? We don't have much time to worry about this, because the plot quickly arrives in the form of a giant purple laser that pulls Howard and his armchair through his apartment building — right past a bathing lady duck with her boobs exposed. Again, why? We don't need or want to see duck boobs! Anyway, Howard is pulled into space and a narrator explains that there are many different planets in the cosmos and what is reality on one planet is but fantasy on all others.

So right away, we can see that this is a very confused movie. I've never read a Howard the Duck comic, but I always assumed that he was a rude, crude, obnoxious tough guy, who was only funny and appropriate for adults. This movie wanted to keep some of those characteristics, but also tame Howard down for the kids. But you can't have it both ways. Pick one or the other. The movie also seemed to want to be a classic superhero/action film with some comedic moments, but it almost came off as a comedy/spoof film with some cheesy action moments. I think they would have been better served to make this a full-fledged comedy aimed at adults.

So back to the story, Howard lands in a bad alley in Cleveland, where he quickly meets Beverly, who is the lead singer of an all-girl rock band. This band screams '80s louder than anything I've seen. They have a keytarist, and they all have big hair. No, I mean huge hair. No, sorry, I mean enormous hair that took them two hours each day to do. Yeah, this band was quite remarkable, and I think they sung four or five songs during the movie. I think they may have been trying to create a rock career for Lea Thompson, but it never paid off. Anyway, Beverly is attacked by some thugs in the alley, and Howard saves her with his Quack Fu, which really isn't anything special. He does one flip, then kind of jumps on a guy and then hits him with a garbage can lid.

And so now we run into another fatal flaw of the movie. Howard was played by six different people wearing a very intricate and cumbersome suit. Due to his extremely limited mobility, all of his fight scenes sucked terribly, effectively killing the action in this movie. To make up for this, they added a couple of overly-long chase scenes, but that could never make up for the main character being physically incapable of doing anything remotely interesting. Also the six people in the suit thing really hurt his overall performance. Sometimes, he moved and acted in a very natural way that made you forget he was just a guy in a suit. But most of the time, it was painfully obvious that it was just a midget walking around with floppy duck boots on his feet.

Another of the many problems was how people reacted to Howard. Some would immediately start screaming, some would think it was a kid in a costume, and many others would treat him like a completely normal person. It was quite a mixed bag. Luckily, Beverly had the most genuine reaction to him. After he saved her in the alley, she took him to her apartment, and really had no idea what to give him, how to talk to him, or even how to refer to him. It was nice refreshing scene that felt authentic and natural, probably the best of the movie, but then it was quickly ruined when Beverly started going through Howard's wallet. It was full of more duck puns, and a condom. How did this get a PG rating?

The next day, Beverly takes Howard to her friend's boyfriend, Phil, whom she thought was a scientist, but turned out just to be the museum's janitor. Seeing that they can't help him, Howard decides to go off on his own. His first task is to get a job, so he visits an unemployment office, where a sassy, fat black lady helps him out. For some reason, Howard tries to bite her butt at one point, but she does find him a job — at a brothel. Howard's job is to push around a cart of towels and lotions to all the rooms of prostitutes and clients. Again, a PG rating? Howard's boss tells him to fix a hot tub, but Howard refuses, so his boss picks him up and tosses him into the tub while people are still in it. The boss said a really stupid line — "Oops, I slipped!" — while Howard yelled that he can't swim. About two seconds later, we see the boss cleaning out a big tub of sludge, when Howard runs up and shoves him in, saying, "Oops, I slipped." Instant payback!

Howard immediately quits that job and goes to see Beverly's band perform. He finds out her manager is cheating her, so he beats him and threatens to give him "space rabies" to get the girls' money back and free them from their contract. He runs into Phil again, who takes one of his feathers to test a theory he has on Howard's arrival. Howard then goes back to Beverly's place, and she begins throwing herself at him, and undresses to very skimpy underwear. No way is this a kids movie! Howard at first is excited to sleep with her, but then he gets nervous and tries to back out. She kisses him and the feathers on his head rise up.

According to Wikipedia, it took months for the special effects team to erect the feathers on his head. Months?! For a two-second moment? Can you imagine if you were a low-level special effects guy, trying to make it in Hollywood, and you had to spend months trying to figure out how to make a duck's feathers stick up? "So, how's life been treating you, Joe?" "Awful! I've spent the last six weeks trying to get these feathers to stand up on a duck's head, and they just won't stay up!"

Fortunately, the awkward sex scene is interrupted by Phil and his friend Dr. Jenning, who is a real scientist. He says Howard's feather matches the feather he found after his "routine experiment" of blasting a laser into space went wrong. To prove his point, he put a video tape into the VCR and showed him turning on the laser, there being an explosion, and a single feather floating down from the ceiling. Apparently, that laser grabbed Howard, and brought him to Earth. Only one of his feathers ended up at the site of the laser, while the rest of him landed in an alley two miles away. Makes perfect sense to me.

Dr. Jenning believes they can use the laser to send him back home, but they have to hurry while the planets are aligned. So he hurries ahead to prepare the laser, while Howard and Beverly pack up, I guess. I'm not sure why it took them so long to get there, but by the time they do, they find the laser has malfunctioned again. One scientist with a badly burned face comes running out screaming, "My eyes! My eyes!" He then falls on his knees and says, "We have no right to tamper with the universe." He then very calmly stands up and walks away. Our heroes enter the room to find that Dr. Jenning took the brunt of the blast and has disappeared somehow.

And then the cops show up for some reason. They decide to arrest Howard, because ... I guess we needed some tension? First the cops try to take off his costume, but find he has no zippers or buttons. He and Beverly eventually escape the cops by lighting a cigar and dropping it in a waste basket. The cop tries to put the fire out by diving into the basket and getting stuck. They then grab the cop's gun and escape. The commanding officer tells the other cops that their suspect is 3-foot-1 and armed, "Which means he's got a gun, which means he's dangerous — extremely dangerous. Shoot to kill." Wait. What's happening now? I watched this movie twice and I could never figure out how Howard suddenly became a wanted fugitive to be killed on sight.

While Howard and Beverly are escaping, they run into Dr. Jenning, who is looking a little under the weather. He helps them escape in his car, but he explains to them very clearly that the laser brought back an inter-dimensional demon that is now inside him and taking over his body. They don't believe him and drive and drive and drive, and finally stop at a Cajun Sushi diner. By this point, Jenning is completely a demon and he explains to Howard, Beverly and the waitress that he is a dark overlord and with the command key in Jenning's jacket, he will use the laser to summon the rest of the dark overlords to destroy the planet. But again, nobody believes him. Even when his skins starts changing and he makes things randomly explode with his powers. The waitress brings them all the special, which includes fried eggs. This makes Howard freak out, which causes the attention of a few drunk truckers in the diner.

They start to mock Howard and take the command key, and then they all get into a fight. The "fight" mostly involves Howard throwing pies in everyone's face, and by throw, I mean stand still with a pie in his hand while somebody runs into it. It wouldn't have been so bad had they only pulled this stunt off once, but it happened three or four times, looking more ridiculous each time. It makes you question why these people are running toward Howard, stopping, stooping over, and placing their faces in pies. Anyway, the whole diner basically gangs up on Howard and decides to cook him. The cook from the back comes out and starts sharpening his knife, while everybody else starts seasoning Howard with his clothes still on and everything. Beverly tries to get the waitress to stop them, but she says fights happen there all the time.

Eventually, Beverly gets Jenning/the dark overlord to save Howard by pointing out that one of the truckers took his command key. The dark overlord uses his lightning powers and telekinesis to save Howard and scare everybody away, but then he grabs Beverly and kidnaps her in a semi. He tells her that the dark overlords need to grow inside a human body first, so he'll be using her to that end.

The police then arrive at the diner and the waitress tells them she realized that Howard wasn't a kid in a costume since Halloween is still a month away. For some reason, the cops also brought Phil along with them, who had been arrested at the lab for whatever reason. Howard helps him escape and they decide to flee on a small airplane that they first need to finish constructing.

By this point, it's morning again, and the dark overlord and Beverly are making their merry way down the highway. They're held up a bit by a routine smog inspection (which may have been routine in 1986, but is not today). The dark overlord destroys all the cars in front of him, then realizes he needs more power, so he stops at a nearby nuclear power plant to recharge.

Howard and Phil finish the airplane and they take off, being pursued hotly by the police. One cop vows to take in that duck dead or alive. (Again, I have no idea why.) The chase scene lasts forever. At one point, the cops shoot the fuel line and Phil has to fix it and he almost falls, and Howard tries to fly the plane through a gap in railcars on a train. That rips the wings off, and they crash into a lake, but are still somehow able to get to the lab in time to save Beverly.

Phil happens to remember a secret weapon laser that could destroy the dark overlord, but he doesn't know the password to unlock the door to it. Howard kicks the door open, so I guess that means he's pretty strong. Anyway, they grab the laser, which is hooked on to a golf cart for some reason, which happens to be just the right size for little Howard to drive around. He battles with the dark overlord for a while, and they go through the cliche '80s action movie shenanigans, and Howard eventually hits the bad guy with the laser. This expelled the dark overlord from Jennings, who is now perfectly fine. The dark overlord reveals his true form, which is a huge stop-motion monster that was reminiscent of Ghostbusters, but much, much worse.

After a few more shenanigans, Howard is able to hit the monster with the laser and kill him once and for all. However, they realize that he had already activated the laser, and the other dark overlords are on their way. To save the earth, Howard destroys the laser, even though that was his only chance of returning home. It's a very touching scene, I suppose.

The movie ends with Beverly and her band performing at a big concert. Howard is now their manager, and they have written a song about him and their adventure. He's then "accidentally" brought onto the stage in a dramatic way. He's handed a guitar and he rocks out just like Marty McFly. I'd like to see Iron Man do that!

This is quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. If you want something to make Batman & Robin look good, you should try Howard the Duck. At least the bad Batman films had good music and elaborate sets and costumes that were semi-interesting to look at. This movie possesses no such redeeming qualities. It also doesn't even remotely feel like a Marvel movie. It does have the line, "Look, up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane — it's a duck!" And somebody did refer to a duck-mobile, but those are DC things — not Marvel. Howard the Duck came out at a really bad time for superhero movies. The Superman franchise had just ended in a disastrous way, and Batman was still a couple of years away. It was also a weird time in George Lucas' career as well. He had finished Return of the Jedi, but then did the controversial Temple of Doom in 1984 and then this. He really went into a little funk for a while until The Last Crusade came out in 1989.

Howard the Duck was made with a $37 million budget, and only earned $37.9 million. This enormous failure prevented Marvel from making another movie in more than a decade, and I think it did irreparable damage to the comic book character Howard the Duck. I know he's been around the past 27 years since this disaster, but he has never been a major player or even remotely popular. And I suppose we have George Lucas to thank for that.

Final score: 0