James Berardinelli review - * out of ****
https://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/howard-the-duck
What were they thinking?share
To anyone who was a fan of the original 1970s run of the comic book (written by Steve Gerber and drawn primarily by Gene Colan), it seemed unlikely that a live-action film could recapture the absurd zaniness that the creators brought to the page. George Lucas, an avowed fan of the “Howard the Duck” series, should have known better. But perhaps the hubris associated with the success of Star Wars led him to believe he could do almost anything. The abject failure of Howard the Duck may have been a sobering reality check. (To regain financial solvency after losing so much money on this project, he apparently sold Steve Jobs the animated portion of ILM, which Jobs subsequently turned into Pixar.)
The movie was awaited with some degree of anticipation by the Marvel faithful. Although the comic book company had been successful with several TV projects, there had yet to be a true motion picture adaptation of a Marvel character. (The only previous films with any Marvel DNA were 1984’s Conan the Destroyer, which was co-written by Marvel stalwarts Roy Thomas & Gerry Conway, and 1985’s Red Sonja, which was based more on the comic book than the Robert E. Howard source material.) Consequently, Howard the Duck was viewed as a breakthrough and, with George Lucas bankrolling the project, expectations were high. Those were quickly dashed on opening day.
Howard the Duck is a bad movie. It doesn’t work as a comic book adaptation, a comedy, an action/adventure film, a fantasy/science fiction pastiche, or a combination of any of the above. The humor is juvenile. The action is cheesy and unexciting. The costume is embarrassing. The script feels like it was cobbled together by people with no knowledge of comic books but who were pretending expertise. (The writers were longtime Lucas collaborators Willard Huyck – who also directed – and Gloria Katz. They previously teamed up on screenplays for American Graffiti and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.)
The movie opens with a bit of terrible world building. Duckworld, Howard’s home planet, is as poorly developed as might be possible. It’s an Earth-like demesne inhabited not by humans but walking, talking ducks. (Donald and Daffy would be at home if their respective studio-owners at the time had allowed them to make cameos.) Howard (played by Ed Gale in a suit and voiced by Chip Zien) is just another ordinary anthropomorphic duck until he is propelled by a mysterious force across space to Earth. He lands in (of all places) Cleveland, where he meets rocker Beverly Switzler (Lea Thompson), who takes pity on the confused man-duck and allows him to spend the night in her apartment.
Howard’s lone goal is to get back to Duckworld and, with Beverly’s help, he starts the quest by meeting Phil Blumburtt (Tim Robbins), a lab assistant who isn’t immediately able to help. Later, however, Phil arrives at a plausible theory about how Howard made his space trip. He introduces the duck to Dr. Walter Jenning (Jeffrey Jones), who may be able to reverse the process. Their attempts to act on this result in an equipment malfunction that brings the so-called Dark Overlord of the Universe to Earth, where he inhabits Walter’s body.
One of the most controversial aspects of Howard the Duck relates to Howard’s relationship with Beverly. The two openly flirt and there’s one scene in which things come close to becoming sexual. Although this is in keeping with the comic book, where the two were in a “relationship,” it came as an unwelcome surprise to parents expecting a family-friendly experience (the MPAA accorded the movie a PG-rating). The primary issue is that the romantic elements are handled so poorly (there’s no evidence of any chemistry between Howard and Beverly) that the scene becomes creepy and off-putting rather than cute or subversive. Like many other aspects of Howard the Duck, it might have worked with pen-and-ink drawings but it comes across as imbecilic and incompetent in a live-action motion picture.