{"id":21089,"date":"2016-07-14T17:34:41","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T21:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=21089"},"modified":"2016-08-20T06:14:41","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T10:14:41","slug":"howard-the-duck-1986","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/14\/howard-the-duck-1986\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard the Duck (1986)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"howard-the-duck\"<\/a>Long before Marvel Cinematic Universes and James Gunn, there was the bastard child of the Marvel Universe \u201cHoward the Duck.\u201d Adapted from the comics during the decade of \u201cET\u201d and other assorted attempts at cuddly cinematic creatures, \u201cHoward the Duck\u201d takes a dive at some of the good old \u201cET\u201d buck, while also presenting itself as the anti-\u201cET\u201d of a sort. \u201cHoward the Duck\u201d is a childhood favorite of mine; it\u2019s one I watched over and over whenever it aired in all of its edited form on network television. There was just something about \u201cHoward the Duck\u201d that I loved. Whether it was the surreal nature, the actual talking duck from another planet, or Lea Thompson being devilishly sexy once again in a fantasy film, I loved \u201cHoward the Duck.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Watching it so many years later, \u201cHoward the Duck\u201d is still a fun tonal mess. It\u2019s a movie that should be experienced at least once in a lifetime because it\u2019s clearly a property of a studio that has no idea what it wants, and it shows as the movie clumsily drags along to the climax. It tries hard to appeal to kids that want to relive \u201cET\u201d once again and enjoy the wonder, but also digs deep in to raunch. The titular character Howard drinks, smokes, tells a group of human kids to \u201cfuck off\u201d and has very implied sexual chemistry with Thompson\u2019s character. After Howard is warped from his home planet to Earth, he comes across a struggling musician named Beverly who he manages to save from attackers thanks to his patented duck fu.<\/p>\n

Taking pity on him, she puts him up at her house and the two forms a friendship, where she learns of his home world and his experience working in his own world\u2019s idea of Hollywood. Meanwhile, Howard meets Beverly\u2019s friend Phil, an aspiring scientist who introduces Howard to Dr. Jennings, a legitimate and brilliant scientist who wants to study Howard and get him back home. But that fails when, working on the technology that warped Howard to Earth, he\u2019s possessed by an alien from another world and inexplicably turns evil. Believe it or not, the whole dilemma involved in \u201cHoward the Duck\u201d is Howard simply trying to adjust to Earth while the writers tack on a villain just as the movie is drawing to a close.<\/p>\n

Who better than Jeffrey Jones, amirite? \u201cHoward the Duck\u201d would have worked just as well without the villainous monster in the climax, as shocking enough Beverly and Howard\u2019s interplay is amusing in its own surreal manner. Lea Thompson seems to know the kind of movie she\u2019s in and pulls in a performance that\u2019s abundantly goofy, but she compensates with her top notch sex appeal and charisma. It\u2019s not a shock Howard the Duck never became another eighties mascot. He\u2019s not ET. He\u2019s barely ALF. That\u2019s thanks to the producers who apparently want the big bucks from kids, but don\u2019t want to water down the character, either.<\/p>\n

That apparent indecisiveness is what holds Howard back big time and makes him just a lukewarm eighties movie character that Marvel Comics would tuck in to the margins of their comics for almost two decades. \u201cHoward the Duck\u201d is still a fun and fast paced piece of eighties schlock that pays off, however small, with a raucous theme song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long before Marvel Cinematic Universes and James Gunn, there was the bastard child of the Marvel Universe \u201cHoward the Duck.\u201d Adapted from the comics during the decade of \u201cET\u201d and other assorted attempts at cuddly cinematic creatures, \u201cHoward the Duck\u201d takes a dive at some of the good old \u201cET\u201d buck, while also presenting itself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,71,219,349,438,633,700,874,906],"class_list":["post-21089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-adaptation","tag-adventure","tag-comedy","tag-fantasy","tag-h","tag-marvel","tag-musical","tag-romance","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21089"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22005,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21089\/revisions\/22005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}