Comic books have been popular for decades and it was no surprise when some movies were made based on some of the more popular characters like Superman and Batman. Some of the less popular characters have been featured in movies. Some of those movies have been much better than others. Howard the Duck was not one of the better movies based on a comic book.
Howard T. Duck lived on Duckworld, a planet that like Earth except it was inhabited by talking ducks. Howard was sitting in his apartment one evening when he was somehow sucked through space and he ended up in Cleveland Ohio. He ended up rescuing singer Beverly Switzler when two men tried to attack her. Beverly was grateful for the help and not too bothered by the fact that Howard was a talking duck, so she took him home with her.
Beverly decided to take Howard to see her friend Phil, who worked in a museum. She thought that Phil might be able to figure out how Howard got to Earth and how to get him back home. Phil, once he got over the shock of meeting Howard, turned to Dr. Walter Jenning for help. They figured out that a test of a laser had transported Howard to Earth and Jenning believed the laser could send Howard back home. Before that could be done, something else with the laser went wrong and one of the evil Dark Overlords of the Universe was able to possess Jenning and had plans of transporting the other Dark Overlords to Earth.
Howard the Duck was based on the character created by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik. Howard first appeared as a minor character in 1973 in the Marvel comic Adventure into Fear. The character was used more before he got his own comic in 1976. He had encounters with other Marvel characters like Spider-Man and Ghost Rider. From what I’ve learned about the comic, it was very satirical and parodied some figures in pop culture and even other comic book characters. Howard the Duck was the first movie that was based on a Marvel comic book. I’ve never read or even seen any of the comics so I don’t know exactly what was changed for the movie. From the things I’ve read online, it seems like very little was kept from the source material beyond the names of a few characters.
I first saw Howard the Duck on television many years ago. I think I had enjoyed it then even though it is a very silly movie. I didn’t know at that point that it was actually based on a comic book either. Since it had been so long since I had seen the movie, I really couldn’t remember much of anything about it. Really all I remembered was that Howard was from another planet, got stuck on Earth, ended up in some sort of relationship with Beverly, and that the movie was rather cheesy. I recently found the movie on one of the movie channels I get and decided to watch it again.
The plot wasn’t complicated and certain explanations didn’t make the most sense. There were some scientific type of explanations, mostly for how Howard and the Dark Overlord of the Universe got to Earth, that really weren’t realistic. The first few minutes of the movie took the time to show Howard at home and how that world had the same type of technology and items that we have on Earth. There were even movie posters for duck versions of some popular movies on the walls of Howard’s apartment. It was kind of interesting to see the things on Duckworld even though very little of the movie actually took place there. Once Howard landed in Cleveland, the movie was focused on him trying to adapt to a strange world and figure out how to get home. It seemed like there was an attempt to add a bit of mystery and some action that failed.
Howard the Duck was not one of the better comic book movie adaptations. It was really pretty bad, with a plot that didn’t go much of anywhere. The effects that were used, especially late in the movie, were very bad even considering when the movie was released. There were bad lines spoken by every character at some point. Howard himself didn’t look too bad, but I think he could have looked better. So much of the movie was just flat out bad. There were a lot of silly things that happened and I laughed at things that I don’t think were supposed to be funny. Even though I fully admit that the movie was bad, there was still something entertaining about it and I did enjoy it when I watched it recently.
Probably the most disturbing thing about the movie was the strange relationship between Howard and Beverly. They met very early in the movie and quickly became friends since she was willing to try and help him. They did have a bit of a spat that they ended up patching up and then the next thing I knew they were in her bed together. Thankfully there wasn’t actually a sex scene between them, but there were a few suggestive things said. It was all very strange and I really don’t want to even think about how that would work between them. Later in the movie Beverly did call Howard her boyfriend. From what I read about the comic book, there was some sort of relationship between the two in it as well. During the first few minutes of the movie when Howard was still on his world, there was some female duck nudity shown, something else that seemed strange. There was no human nudity in the movie, so it ended up being rated PG.
Howard was in almost every scene of the movie as the main character. He wasn’t happy to have ended up in Cleveland and he wanted to go home. He got annoyed by the strange reactions that he received from just about everyone. Howard was actually played by seven different people wearing the duck costume. Chip Zien provided the voice for the character. There were times when the voice got grating.
Beverly was in a band, Cherry Bomb, that was struggling to get discovered and they had to play in some very bad locations. She was a kind if somewhat ditzy woman who wanted to help Howard. She had really bad hair throughout the movie that had been crimped. Personally, I thought it looked like she stuck her finger in a light socket or maybe pried her morning toast out of the toaster with a butter knife. It was not a good look for Lea Thompson. I still can’t figure out why she wanted to be in this movie. The other three members of Cherry Bomb were briefly shown in a couple of scenes without any of them getting much of anything to do.
Phil was Beverly’s friend. He worked at a local museum as some sort of lab assistant or janitor or something. I was never really sure on that since he acted like a big shot scientist when talking to Beverly and Howard but someone else at the museum was telling him to do things that seemed more like what a janitor would do. Phil got very excited about all sorts of things. It is hard to believe that Tim Robbins, the man who won the best supporting Oscar for Mystic River, was actually in this movie as Phil. He was over acting every time he turned up in a scene and quickly got irritating. Dr. Walter Jenning was the scientist from the museum that Phil told about Howard. Jenning was very willing to try to help Howard get home before things went wrong and he was possessed by a Dark Overlord of the Universe. Jeffrey Jones gave a decent performance as Jenning, though it did border on the campy more than once.
Main Cast
Peter Baird - Howard T. Duck Ed Gale - Howard T. Duck Jeffrey Jones - Dr. Walter Jenning Jordan Prentice - Howard T. Duck Tim Robbins - Phil Timothy M. Rose - Howard T. Duck Steve Sleap - Howard T. Duck Lisa Sturz - Howard T. Duck Lea Thompson - Beverly Switzler Mary Wells - Howard T. Duck Chris Zien - Voice of Howard T. Duck
Willard Huyck - Director
Howard the Duck was one of the more unusual movies that I’ve seen and probably the most unique of the comic book adaptions that I’ve seen. The movie was one of the ones that is entertaining to watch because it is bad. I really was entertained when I watched the movie. It did seem kind of strange that this character got a movie before some of the more popular Marvel characters like Spider-Man or the X-Men.
This review is part of elvisdo’s 2007 Canadiania Write-off. Sidney Wolinsky, one of the editors for the movie, was originally from Winnipeg.
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