The Cheese List: Howard the Duck

Credentials: 4.1 out of 10 (imdb.com), 16% Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com)

Plot: A long, long time ago a giant duck was transported from his home, an all-duck planet in a galaxy far, far away, to Earth. Once gets here, he plods around a cliché 80’s movie aimlessly for about 50 minutes until the actual plot gets going. By the time an intergalactic demon shows up to do battle with him/help him occasionally, you just might be asleep. If you’re lucky.

Thoughts: There are so many things I don’t understand about “Howard the Duck.” I can’t fathom why anyone thought it would be a good idea to make a movie about a foul-mouthed… errr… fowl with a script composed almost entirely of duck puns.

Another thing, why the heck is “Howard the Duck” TWO HOURS LONG!?! There aren’t enough capital letters in the world to properly express how dumbfounded I am by that runtime. Two hours for a movie about a giant duck. Two hours and nothing happens until the 50 minute mark!

I’m not even sure who the target audience for this movie is. It’s way too stupid to be marketed to anyone over 12, but it’s entirely too creepy to be meant for anyone under it.

I can say, without the slightest fear of exaggeration, that “Howard the Duck” is one of the 10 creepiest movies ever made.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “How could a movie about a goofy looking space duck be creepy? That day in New York has made you soft you fool!”

I’ve got two words. Duck boobies. And that’s only like 30 seconds into the movie.

Once the real “plot” kicks in, so does the creepy. We’re talking interspecies romance between the space duck and an adorable 80’s rocker chick played by Lea Thompson.

There are all sorts of insane sexual undertones between those two. Undertones so loud they can’t really even be called undertones. More like raging solos.

Watching Lea Thompson hop into bed with a duck and then lovingly caress him… dear god. I like to think I’m an open minded man, but no one should be forced to endure that kind of degenerate craziness.

So I don’t have a clue who’s supposed to enjoy this movie. As I mentioned, if you took all the duck puns out of the script, you’d be left with about 3 pages.

In addition to puns, “Howard the Duck” is also jam-packed with 80’s movie clichés.

There’s an obligatory guitar solo at one point. Jeffrey Jones plays a villain. You know, the usual.

The story is an unmitigated disaster and it meanders along at a snail’s pace, but the effects are pretty good. Sound familiar? It should. George Lucas served as the film’s Exec. Producer.

Any positives? Two.

Tim Robbins does a delightful Rick Moranis, mad scientist impression. Sadly, he’s not in enough of the movie to make a huge impact.

The other positive is the painfully lovely Lea Thompson. When she’s not trying to bed a water fowl that is.

She’s a ball of energy and gives it her all in every scene despite the DOA material she has to work with. If it wasn’t for the bestiality stuff, she might have been good enough to make “Howard the Duck” watchable.

Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

Breakdown

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