Howard the Duck (1986)

As part of their recent (and much needed) makeover, Marvel Comics started a new mature audiences line, MAX, the like of which the company had been lacking since their Epic Illustrated line fizzled out sometime in the early 90s (well, there was also Razorline, a briefly flourishing crop of books using characters created by horror/fantasy novelist Clive Barker, but I think the number of people who vividly remember that experiment can be counted on both hands). One of MAX’s headliners was a second “Howard the Duck” series, written by the character’s creator and writer of the original series Steve Gerber. Surprisingly, the new series hasn’t received much attention from any angle, hopelessly overshadowed by Marvel’s other critical successes, such as Grant Morrison’s shockingly fresh take on the X-Men and their Ultimate line of superhero properties. Certainly there can be a few plausible explanations for this: the new “Howard the Duck” is the victim of poor advertising and/or fan apathy; the character has already passed his time; or Steve Gerber just can’t kick off the je ne sais quoi that made his series a hit the first time around. For the money, though, I’d say this film is responsible, having stuck to the property like a voodoo curse.

Those of you who only know of Howard the Duck through this movie might find this surprising, but Steve Gerber’s series prided in taking a wry, cynical look at American culture and politics. There was even a storyline where Howard the Duck tried to run for President of the United States! Aside from his trademark cigar and bad temper, the Howard of the movie bears little resemblance to the more misanthropic duck of the series. Any political insights or sharp jabs at human nature are buried with bad duck-related quips and puns, while the movie is jammed full of the worst of 80’s fashion and music, making one wonder if maybe this is the movie’s attempt at satire. So the great sin of the makers of Howard the Duck isn’t that they made a terrible movie, but that they made a depressingly average one.

The viewer drowns in unbearable duck-related visual gags and jokes from the get-go, as we see an average night in Howard the Duck’s life before he sucked through a few of his neighbors’ walls by an energy force. Now, here you can tell what’s going to be this movie’s main issue. The sight of a naked humanoid duck’s breasts, besides not usually being one of the top five images you want to see in the first ten minutes , was obviously written in for teenagers and adults. Yet a lot of the movie’s humor (well, alleged humor) and plot turns are pretty juvenile, which can lead to hours-long arguments as to what age group the script was written for, but I doubt anyone involved knew the answer to that question themselves. Most likely, the script was butchered at some stage in its development in the holy name of the children by those unaware of the comic series' target audience, although how the bare duck boobs (yes, you even see nipple) still made it is beyond me.

Anyhoo...Howard is sucked through space to our planet, which happens to exactly resemble his in terms of geography, culture, development, and even history and language, the only differences being in the names (for instance, Washington is Marshington, Bloomingdales is Bloomingduck’s, ad nauseam literally) . In the comics, Howard hails from a parallel Earth, which is both interesting and makes sense besides. Although the movie later tries to follow up on its decided premise by tacking on a monologue and a visual about how ducks could theoretically take a path of evolution similar to that of humanity, it doesn’t even touch the silliness of having another planet just happening to develop a society with a history exactly like America’s and a language exactly like English (and, given the different shape and form of their mouth and tongues, wouldn’t the languages of a humanoid duck species be completely unlike anything spoken by the human race?) I know that films like this deserve a fair share of suspension of disbelief and the restrictions of a two-hour movie have to be taken into account, but the idea is just one that keeps gnawing away at the patience of the viewer and it’s all so clumsily put together that it’s almost as if somebody decides to drop the alternate reality idea at the last minute when putting together the script...

Anyhoo...

The real reason for watching this quickly becomes apparent when Howard ends up on Earth and, after a few bad experiences with the local color, ends up in a sleazy club where a band headed by Bev, played by Lea Thompson, is performing. Ah, the hair, the clothes, the horror...here Lea gets a dozen Bon Jovi and Twisted Sister videos’ worth of pure 80’s essence crammed into her. After the show, Bev is attacked by a couple of thugs, who might have her confused with Cyndi Lauper or at least a bad imposter. At the last possible minute, Howard rescues her with his...er, ‘quack-fu.’ I don’t know if I really need to explain how creepy and unsettling this whole scene is. I mean, do scriptwriters usually need to be taught that using a near-rape scene as the means to introduce two protagonists isn’t the most tasteful thing to do, especially in a PG-rated film that’s set up at least in part as a kids’ movie?

At any rate, Bev takes Howard in (as awful 80’s music swells while the scene goes on) and convinces him to let her drag him to a scientist friend who could help Howard return to his home planet. The scientist friend Phil (played by a suprisingly lifeless Tim Robbins) turns out just to be a lab assistant (even Bev seems surprised by this...why?) and, for absolutely no reason at all, Howard becomes irritated and scorns Bev, deciding to try to hit it off on his on.

It really isn’t saying much, but these are probably the best moments in the entire movie. Not only does Howard finally get his trademark cigar, but the way he interacts with the prying, obnoxious people around him in this part of the film is at least a little bit more true to Steve Gerber’s concept than what we’ve seen before. Unfortunately, it all turns out to be just padding before Howard’s reunion with Bev, where he beats up her sleazy manager and his goons with more ‘quack-fu.’ Well, there is the surreal quality of seeing a few grown men unrealistically beaten up by an animatronic duck , but even that can’t really sustain the interest of the audience, at least not me.

Phil and Bev discover that an experimental space laser/telescope thing (the film isn’t really all that clear on what it is and how it grabbed a small individual being and took him through space without subjecting him to a horrible, agonizing death, but I guess all that isn’t important) is responsible for Howard’s appearance on Earth. They meet up with the scientist in charge of the project, who happens to be played by Jeffrey Jones who is always good for an amusing performance (he even made Stay Tuned watchable). Anyway, the laser malfunctions and explodes, but only after it brings something back. It’s later revealed that Jeffrey Jones’ character is possessed by a Lovecraftian demon calling itself the Dark Overlord of the Universe and, as all Lovecraftian demons tend to do, it wants to use the laser to free the rest of its brethren from their celestial prison. I have to admit, it was actually funny seeing Jeffrey Jones hissing in an overly ‘EE-vil’ voice and sounding a bit like Cobra Commander on some kind of drug induced craze.

Anyway, Bev is kidnapped (well, what did you expect for her to do? Actually affect the plot in a meaningful and significant way?) by the Dark Overlord, but not before the police come after Howard and Phil for their involvement in the laser experiment, which had apparently been conducted from the very beginning without permission (pretty big experiment to go unnoticed. Didn’t anyone notice the giant, freakin’ laser all those people happened to be working on?) leading to some yawn suspenseful chase scenes. Howard and Phil save Bev and the planet at the last minute, but Howard has to destroy the laser, which was his only shot at getting home. Nevertheless, after destroying the Dark Overlord who has reverted to his true form, Howard, Phil, and Bev manage to live happily ever after, especially since the police apparently have forgotten that they were after them. The end.

Reading over this, I realize how many tried plot elements this movie has: the helpless damsel in distress; the race against time to stop the villain from fulfilling his apocalyptic scheme; the world being saved at the last possible minute. The movie might have still successfully pulled it off had it been self-consciously aware of these elements and ripped them to shreds, but, despite the unusual nature of the title character and the nature of the series the film is based on, it all just feels so standard. the part halfway through the movie where Howard tries to find employment and his place in the human world is thus made all the more jarring; it’s just abruptly dropped and reminds viewers at least how much more original this film would have been had it gone in that direction rather than try to be your typical fantasy-adventure-comedy. This has been said about a lot of comic book adaptations, but, honestly, you’d be better off spending your time and money just reading the old series than grabbing a copy of this duck-tastrophy (see, I can do it too).