HOWARD THE DUCK (1986) / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: WILLARD HUYCK / SCREENPLAY: WILLARD HUYCK, GLORIA KATZ / STARRING: LEA THOMPSON, JEFFREY JONES, TIM ROBBINS, ED GALE, CHIP ZIEN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Always leading the pack and never following the herd, STARBURST was one of the few film publications to give George Lucas’s maligned production of Howard the Duck (bafflingly titled Howard: A New Breed of Hero in the UK) the time of day back in 1986. Way back in issue 100, cocking a snook at the popular opinion that this was actually Howard the Turkey, we came to the conclusion that film was actually “more than a pleasant surprise.” Some things haven’t changed. Nearly 33 years later, now on a gleaming new Blu-ray packed with special features, Howard the Duck is still great fun, if of course, utterly quackers; stick that in your bill and smoke it.
Howard, a talking duck abducted from his home world and stranded on Earth, first appeared in the world of Marvel comics in December 1973, the acerbic and hugely satirical creation of writer Steve Gerber, eventually gravitating towards his own fairly short-lived title in 1976. The comic folded in 1979, but the character continued to weave his way around the Marvel Universe and eventually onto the big screen is this barking mad, tonally peculiar comic book-inspired romp that is, to say the least, a very odd place for Marvel Comics to make their first faltering steps into the world of full-length feature films. The film was a box office disaster, pulled apart by critics and dismissed by fans who bemoaned the stripping away of the wise-cracking edginess of the comic strip iteration of the character. Co-writer Katz saw the character in much more simplistic terms so the film depicts the exploits of a duck called Howard, catapulted across time and space from his own planet and dumped unceremoniously into 1980s Cleveland. Here he meets up with struggling rock singer Beverly Switzler (an often scantily-clad Lea Thompson) and bumbly Phil Blumburtt (Robbins),a janitor with aspirations towards being a scientist, with whom may lie the only hope of Howard returning to Duckworld. The first attempt to get Howard home results in an evil creature known as ‘the Dark Overlord’ travelling to Earth and possessing the body of Dr Walter Jenning (Jones). Howard and his new friends are thrown into battle with the Dark Overlord with the final confrontation leading to poor Howard finding himself stuck on Earth forever… but securing himself the job as the manager of Beverly’s band as, presumably, they go on to become the next big thing.
Time has been surprisingly kind to Howard the Duck, a film whose structure now mirrors all those superhero films from DC and the MCU that, for better or for worse, often follow the basic cookie cutter template of establishing the hero and his new friends, setting up a formidable enemy and then a big CGI-fest finale (and the FX here, physical and computer-generated, are still pretty impressive). Our hero, of course, is a walking, talking, wise-ass duck, who enjoys an entirely inappropriate and potentially disturbing relationship with Beverly (the cause of much of the brickbats the films received back in 1986), which left its audience (what there was of it) slack-jawed. He finds life in 1980s America rather difficult to come to terms with. Howard himself isn’t, of course hugely convincing; this is a child in a duck-suit most of the time and fans of the comic will have been appalled at the softening of the caustic comic strip character. Yet the film is bursting with brio and its tongue is never really far from its cheek. Possessed of an extraordinary, colourful charm, Howard the Duck is probably likely to find favour in 2019 with an audience who didn’t see it in 1986 and if you can sidestep the mullets, the aching 1980s visuals and the thudding synth score (the end theme is a real earworm) you’re sure to find that Howard the Duck, if not exactly a milestone comic strip movie, really isn’t as bad as history has painted it and is, in its own way, rather delightful.
