I wrote this in September 2012 after watching the movie, but never finished it, so it skips over several parts. The parts that are included have some spoilers of varying intensity.
Review of "Howard the Duck"
By C. Randall Nicholson
I once felt compelled to experience firsthand the cultural phenomenon that is the movie called Howard the Duck. Culture comes and goes, and this was seven years before my time, so it's not exactly pertinent to most conversations with my peers. But it's one of those things that's going to remain (in)famous forever, so when people shudder and say “Howard the Duck” it's nice to know what they're talking about. Besides, I consider myself a science fiction fanatic so I need to act like one. In any case I borrowed the disk from the library one night and watched it in a couple of sittings.
Howard the Duck is widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made, but I have to disagree. Some movies, like Plan 9 from Outer Space, are so bad they're good. Others, like The Star Wars Holiday Special, are so bad they go past good and become bad again. But in my view Howard the Duck isn't that bad at all – just really, unbelievably mediocre for the first half and kind of awesome for the second. Besides, the sheer volume of movies in existence guarantees that many of them are a lot worse. Anyway, having watched it, I feel compelled to write out my thoughts and impressions for posterity and try to come to grips with why such a thing exists. I'll go through the whole movie a la “The Nostalgia Critic” though I make no claims to be nearly as witty as him.
I will state first off that I was very impressed by the Howard costume. I hadn't expected the flexibility of the body or the range of eye and beak mobility in the animatronic head. I could actually see him as a believable character because he moves almost like a real person, except when he does a lot of jumping and flipping and so forth and you can tell he's moving around on a wire. I mean really, there was no point at which I thought to myself "That's a midget in a costume", whereas even nowadays movie characters often make me think "That's computer generated". What's even cooler is that the midget in question, Ed Helms of “Chuckie” fame, couldn't see a thing when his beak was closed and essentially memorized where to walk and stuff. Also, he sweat so much that he never had to pee.
Chip Zien helps out by dubbing in one of those voices that's just fun to listen to. Howard's personality is another story, and for that I fault the scriptwriters rather than either actor. He's based on the Marvel Comics character, of course, but has undergone some inexplicable changes. Now, rather than being a rough, gritty wisequacker – er, cracker – he's as benign as Porky Pig without a stutter. That makes him a lot less interesting because let's face it, nobody likes a goody-two-shoes. But he isn't entirely a goody-two shoes because he still likes his booze, cigars, and sex, and sometimes when he gets angry he beats people up or threatens them with knives. Rather than a complex, multifaceted personality, this comes across to me as a sloppy contradiction.
The movie opens on Howard's den, and we are treated to a few silly bird puns. By far the funniest is a movie poster for "Breeders of the Lost Stork". Another advertises that it features “Mae Nest” and “W.C. Fowl”, and the camera stays on it for way too long as the filmmakers apparently wait for their audience to think back to the 1930s. I could all but hear them whispering "Do you get it? It's funny, right?" Coming so early in the movie, this little gaffe did not bode well. Anyway, Howard comes home from work, grabs a beer, listens to his phone messages, and channel surfs for a minute. There is nothing interesting or amusing about either the phone messages or the TV shows, not even more bird puns. The TV shows feature more talking ducks but are otherwise just as much drivel as the real thing.
It's only a few minutes into the movie when Howard, about whom we know nothing save how he decorates his home, turns off the TV and picks up a copy of "Playduck" magazine. (They should have called it "Playbill", because it sounds more like "Playboy", and ducks have bills, and playbill is also a real word.) "Let's see who they interviewed this month,” he says, and opens it to a centerfold of scantily clad (not nude) female ducks. This sets a bad precedent. The problem that I have with the movie's sexual content is not so much the sexual content itself as the fact that it always seems to be shoehorned in just for the sake of having sexual content. I think that's the case in most movies, but other filmmakers at least make an effort to be subtle about it and pretend it's essential to the story.
Howard's chair then rises off the ground and goes flying through several rooms. One of them is a bathroom, where a lady duck is bathing and making no attempt to conceal her breasts. Now, I'm fairly certain that the folks responsible for this bit are aware that birds don't have breasts per se, so I'm left to wonder at why on earth they chose to put some on. I mean, suppose you were watching a movie and a human woman suddenly laid an egg and it had nothing to do with the plot – that's how distracting this was for me. The second thing I wonder is how they got away with it. What an interesting meeting they must have had with the ratings board. "Look, nobody's going to find this sexy, so it's a non-issue, right?" "Hmmm, okay, but in that case I'm curious why you put it in to begin with." "Um... I plead the fifth."
[missing part]
Now we are introduced to the lovely Beverly Switzler, lead singer for an up-and-coming band called Cherry Bomb. She is played by Lea Thompson, who is known for such diverse roles as Marty McFly's mom in Back to the Future, Marty McFly's mom in Back to the Future Part II, and Marty McFly's great-grandma in Back to the Future Part III. (Incidentally, she has aged a lot better in real life.) She, along with the other cast members in the band, does all her own singing for this role thanks to months of practice. Anyway, Beverly hasn't attracted the attention of any talent scouts, but she has attracted the attention of a couple creeps who would like to have some "fun" with her. Luckily for her, Howard is nearby and emerges from his trash can to take them on.
Beverly takes him to see her friend Phil
Howard goes to find a job and is antagonized a bit by a large woman who accuses him of looking like a freak on purpose so he won't get hired and can keep collecting unemployment checks "on the public dime". This woman is black, so finding out that she isn't a Democrat hindered my suspension of disbelief a little. Howard retorts that he has to shoplift at the Little Tykes section of Goodwill, and when she turns around Howard tries but fails to bite her rump. I guess extraterrestrials have weird customs, but I'm surprised to see a sentient being attempting this just because he's annoyed and with no regard for the consequences. If he knew her better it would be different, for as King Julian says in Madagascar, "What is a little bite on the butt among friends?"
[missing part]
Beverly jumps onto her bed on all fours and leans over to fluff her pillows a bit. Some really cynical people might see this as an unnecessary and contrived pretext to gratuitously flaunt her panties at the camera for a few seconds, but those people just have dirty minds. It turns out that Howard's mind is dirty as well - in fact, one might even say it's fowl. At least he doesn't bite her. "Although..." he continues, "I have developed a greater appreciation for the female version of the human anatomy." For a moment Beverly is surprised by this non sequitir; then she says, "Howard, that's really messed up. Don't ever speak to me like that again." Just kidding. Actually she swoons, just like every other girl who receives a vague yet distinctly lustful compliment from someone of another species. Oh yeah, and his wolf whistle probably melts her heart too.
The next thing we know, Howard is in bed with her. This is, of course, no different than taking a dog or cat to bed, notwithstanding the preceding awkwardness or the fact that the conversation immediately turns to relationships. Howard tells her that maybe she shouldn't look for a man, and she says maybe she should try finding happiness in the animal kingdom. (This, despite the well-known fact that men are humans and humans are also part of the animal kingdom.) She starts acting all seductive and caressing him and stuff, and he starts to panic because he was just kidding. He still likes it though, as evidenced by the feathers on his head standing on end. That animatronic effect reportedly took a month to achieve. I'm so glad that kind of time and money was spent on an erection joke.
After testing the limits of how insanely creepy such a gorgeous woman can get, Beverly admits that she was just kidding too. At this point Howard should explain to her that she crossed a line and that she should abandon such pranks when they start causing her friends visible discomfort, but he doesn't. Then just as they're kissing Phil bursts in with a couple of other guys because she left her door unlocked. He's excited, not just because he's caught her in her underwear in a compromising position with a duck, but because he now knows how Howard got to Earth.
One of the other men is Dr. Jennings, the scientist who figured it out. He is played by Jeffrey Jones, who is known for playing that guy in Amadeus who likes to say "There it is." You know, that one guy who was kind of important... yeah, the king, that guy.
[missing part]
When the monster makes its appearance, it's a stop-motion bluescreen puppet and my first thought was "Wow, that looks fake." It's a shame that after an entire movie of practically flawless special effects, the time period's limitations become so glaring in the finale. Yet after a few moments I got used to it and thought, "Okay, yeah, but it's still pretty awesome." Indeed, this monster is awesome. I really don't know how else to put it. Jabba the Hutt's rancor from Return of the Jedi, with post-VHS touch-ups, is the only 80s movie monster that looks cooler.
[missing part]
Phil yells "Duck!" and Howard retorts "And proud of it!" This was the part that my dad had quoted years ago when we were on the subject for some reason, so I had been keeping an ear out for it. Despite being the oldest pun ever it was actually pretty cool and dramatic, and would have been even more so had it not been preceded by so much mediocrity.
Howard the Duck is widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made, but I have to disagree. Some movies, like Plan 9 from Outer Space, are so bad they're good. Others, like The Star Wars Holiday Special, are so bad they go past good and become bad again. But in my view Howard the Duck isn't that bad at all – just really, unbelievably mediocre for the first half and kind of awesome for the second. Besides, the sheer volume of movies in existence guarantees that many of them are a lot worse. Anyway, having watched it, I feel compelled to write out my thoughts and impressions for posterity and try to come to grips with why such a thing exists. I'll go through the whole movie a la “The Nostalgia Critic” though I make no claims to be nearly as witty as him.
I will state first off that I was very impressed by the Howard costume. I hadn't expected the flexibility of the body or the range of eye and beak mobility in the animatronic head. I could actually see him as a believable character because he moves almost like a real person, except when he does a lot of jumping and flipping and so forth and you can tell he's moving around on a wire. I mean really, there was no point at which I thought to myself "That's a midget in a costume", whereas even nowadays movie characters often make me think "That's computer generated". What's even cooler is that the midget in question, Ed Helms of “Chuckie” fame, couldn't see a thing when his beak was closed and essentially memorized where to walk and stuff. Also, he sweat so much that he never had to pee.
Chip Zien helps out by dubbing in one of those voices that's just fun to listen to. Howard's personality is another story, and for that I fault the scriptwriters rather than either actor. He's based on the Marvel Comics character, of course, but has undergone some inexplicable changes. Now, rather than being a rough, gritty wisequacker – er, cracker – he's as benign as Porky Pig without a stutter. That makes him a lot less interesting because let's face it, nobody likes a goody-two-shoes. But he isn't entirely a goody-two shoes because he still likes his booze, cigars, and sex, and sometimes when he gets angry he beats people up or threatens them with knives. Rather than a complex, multifaceted personality, this comes across to me as a sloppy contradiction.
The movie opens on Howard's den, and we are treated to a few silly bird puns. By far the funniest is a movie poster for "Breeders of the Lost Stork". Another advertises that it features “Mae Nest” and “W.C. Fowl”, and the camera stays on it for way too long as the filmmakers apparently wait for their audience to think back to the 1930s. I could all but hear them whispering "Do you get it? It's funny, right?" Coming so early in the movie, this little gaffe did not bode well. Anyway, Howard comes home from work, grabs a beer, listens to his phone messages, and channel surfs for a minute. There is nothing interesting or amusing about either the phone messages or the TV shows, not even more bird puns. The TV shows feature more talking ducks but are otherwise just as much drivel as the real thing.
It's only a few minutes into the movie when Howard, about whom we know nothing save how he decorates his home, turns off the TV and picks up a copy of "Playduck" magazine. (They should have called it "Playbill", because it sounds more like "Playboy", and ducks have bills, and playbill is also a real word.) "Let's see who they interviewed this month,” he says, and opens it to a centerfold of scantily clad (not nude) female ducks. This sets a bad precedent. The problem that I have with the movie's sexual content is not so much the sexual content itself as the fact that it always seems to be shoehorned in just for the sake of having sexual content. I think that's the case in most movies, but other filmmakers at least make an effort to be subtle about it and pretend it's essential to the story.
Howard's chair then rises off the ground and goes flying through several rooms. One of them is a bathroom, where a lady duck is bathing and making no attempt to conceal her breasts. Now, I'm fairly certain that the folks responsible for this bit are aware that birds don't have breasts per se, so I'm left to wonder at why on earth they chose to put some on. I mean, suppose you were watching a movie and a human woman suddenly laid an egg and it had nothing to do with the plot – that's how distracting this was for me. The second thing I wonder is how they got away with it. What an interesting meeting they must have had with the ratings board. "Look, nobody's going to find this sexy, so it's a non-issue, right?" "Hmmm, okay, but in that case I'm curious why you put it in to begin with." "Um... I plead the fifth."
[missing part]
Now we are introduced to the lovely Beverly Switzler, lead singer for an up-and-coming band called Cherry Bomb. She is played by Lea Thompson, who is known for such diverse roles as Marty McFly's mom in Back to the Future, Marty McFly's mom in Back to the Future Part II, and Marty McFly's great-grandma in Back to the Future Part III. (Incidentally, she has aged a lot better in real life.) She, along with the other cast members in the band, does all her own singing for this role thanks to months of practice. Anyway, Beverly hasn't attracted the attention of any talent scouts, but she has attracted the attention of a couple creeps who would like to have some "fun" with her. Luckily for her, Howard is nearby and emerges from his trash can to take them on.
Beverly takes him to see her friend Phil
Howard goes to find a job and is antagonized a bit by a large woman who accuses him of looking like a freak on purpose so he won't get hired and can keep collecting unemployment checks "on the public dime". This woman is black, so finding out that she isn't a Democrat hindered my suspension of disbelief a little. Howard retorts that he has to shoplift at the Little Tykes section of Goodwill, and when she turns around Howard tries but fails to bite her rump. I guess extraterrestrials have weird customs, but I'm surprised to see a sentient being attempting this just because he's annoyed and with no regard for the consequences. If he knew her better it would be different, for as King Julian says in Madagascar, "What is a little bite on the butt among friends?"
[missing part]
Beverly jumps onto her bed on all fours and leans over to fluff her pillows a bit. Some really cynical people might see this as an unnecessary and contrived pretext to gratuitously flaunt her panties at the camera for a few seconds, but those people just have dirty minds. It turns out that Howard's mind is dirty as well - in fact, one might even say it's fowl. At least he doesn't bite her. "Although..." he continues, "I have developed a greater appreciation for the female version of the human anatomy." For a moment Beverly is surprised by this non sequitir; then she says, "Howard, that's really messed up. Don't ever speak to me like that again." Just kidding. Actually she swoons, just like every other girl who receives a vague yet distinctly lustful compliment from someone of another species. Oh yeah, and his wolf whistle probably melts her heart too.
The next thing we know, Howard is in bed with her. This is, of course, no different than taking a dog or cat to bed, notwithstanding the preceding awkwardness or the fact that the conversation immediately turns to relationships. Howard tells her that maybe she shouldn't look for a man, and she says maybe she should try finding happiness in the animal kingdom. (This, despite the well-known fact that men are humans and humans are also part of the animal kingdom.) She starts acting all seductive and caressing him and stuff, and he starts to panic because he was just kidding. He still likes it though, as evidenced by the feathers on his head standing on end. That animatronic effect reportedly took a month to achieve. I'm so glad that kind of time and money was spent on an erection joke.
After testing the limits of how insanely creepy such a gorgeous woman can get, Beverly admits that she was just kidding too. At this point Howard should explain to her that she crossed a line and that she should abandon such pranks when they start causing her friends visible discomfort, but he doesn't. Then just as they're kissing Phil bursts in with a couple of other guys because she left her door unlocked. He's excited, not just because he's caught her in her underwear in a compromising position with a duck, but because he now knows how Howard got to Earth.
One of the other men is Dr. Jennings, the scientist who figured it out. He is played by Jeffrey Jones, who is known for playing that guy in Amadeus who likes to say "There it is." You know, that one guy who was kind of important... yeah, the king, that guy.
[missing part]
When the monster makes its appearance, it's a stop-motion bluescreen puppet and my first thought was "Wow, that looks fake." It's a shame that after an entire movie of practically flawless special effects, the time period's limitations become so glaring in the finale. Yet after a few moments I got used to it and thought, "Okay, yeah, but it's still pretty awesome." Indeed, this monster is awesome. I really don't know how else to put it. Jabba the Hutt's rancor from Return of the Jedi, with post-VHS touch-ups, is the only 80s movie monster that looks cooler.
[missing part]
Phil yells "Duck!" and Howard retorts "And proud of it!" This was the part that my dad had quoted years ago when we were on the subject for some reason, so I had been keeping an ear out for it. Despite being the oldest pun ever it was actually pretty cool and dramatic, and would have been even more so had it not been preceded by so much mediocrity.