Howard the Duck (OnDemand) - Matt

I have to explain why this movie is even on this list. Notice, this is a Matt pick. Matt Siblo, brother and consistent contributor to this blog’s comments page, is visiting me this weekend as a surprise by my lovely wife and himself.
Now, last time Matt and I visited each other we watched six movies in two days. We love to do this: eat bad food, watch movies, and discuss them. Occasionally other topics sneak in, but these are rare occasions and often happen on the way to a movie. So, when we arrived back home from picking Matt up from the airport and Matt asked to view our offerings OnDemand the pickings were slim. So, Howard the Duck was chosen.

Howard T. Duck lives on a planet inhabited by anthropomorphized ducks whose civilization apparently evolved exactly as ours did; only ducks were the dominant species. Their civilization even has duck related media. This leads to such mallard-enhanced naming schemes as Playduck and Indiana Duck. After a hard day at work Howard sits in an easy chair and is instantly transported through a wormhole. He lands in Cleveland, Ohio and waddles out into our world where he is gawked at as he is a 3 foot walking talking duck. After getting thrown out of a punk rock club, I’m not sure how he got there; he is witness to Lea Thompson’s character’s potential rape. Howard comes to the rescue, I guess, by distracting them enough to be browbeaten by a 3-foot water fowl and a punk rock version of Marty Mcfly’s mom. Beverly, Lea Thompson’s poorly named character, almost instantly feels sorry for the poor mallard alien and asked if he wants to come over. This leads to a series of odd happenings that added to the running time of this movie and culminate in a very awkward scene in which Beverly seduces Howard. Matt and I were turning away from the T.V. at this point as no amount of Lea Thompson nakedness could make us stomach the idea of a duck and a woman. Eventually, this is broken up by scientists who break into Beverly’s house and tell Howard they were the reason he was brought here and they can get him home. This is about at the forty-five minute mark of an hour and a half duck movie so Matt and I were confused at how a resolution to this farce could take another forty-five minutes of our lives. Sadly, it could. Here is the fast version: Howard is brought to a facility where he was pulled down by some tractor beam, but as he arrives something has gone horribly wrong and another being has been brought back, but not from the duck-verse! It turns out it is a demon from some unknown demon-verse who possess a scientist and plans to take over the earth! The cops show up! Everyone runs! Howard gets separated from Beverly and this leads to a fifteen minute scene in which Howard flies an ultralight (a very small aircraft that looks like a hang-glider)! Howard kills the demon and destroys the tractor beam now he can’t get home! Beverly and her band play a monster gig rocking the song “Howard the duck”!

So, to say this is a waste of time is an understatement. An hour in Matt was pleading me to fast forward but I claimed that for the honesty of this blog I must watch the whole movie. Matt did this several times, but I refuted his pleas. This movie was far too long. Multiple scenes were pointlessly added and the ending took thirty minutes from my life which I could have used to brush up on my duck puns. This seems on par for George Lucas, who has done his best to hide this mallardy (yeah thats right, a duck pun), and hasn’t done something relevant since Last Crusade. But, Based on the premise of this movie I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. However, when the execution on a 37 million dollar project is this bad it is a thing to watch. 37 million-1980-dollars that is insane to think about. Matt and I weren’t entirely sure who this movie was even marketed to as it was too racy for 1986 kids to see (there were duck boobs), but the premise was too stupid for anyone else to see. The score, which was written by Academy Award winning composer John Barry, seemed out of place in this tottery world of ducks and Lea Thompson. But, it did help remind me of films like Flight of the Navigator (1986) and The Explorers (1985) which contained science fiction with a starkly family feel. So, maybe it did have some sort of audience that it thought it could cater to, but they were obviously misguided in thinking this film would reach anyone as this film eventually became known as a clausal bomb.

2 out of 10: bloated, overly long, and poorly executed, though some fun can be garnered from mocking it.