Howard the Duck

There's good stuff around the edges of the film -- all that word play and all those visual gags demand that you pay attention lest you miss something even in the slow scenes. But at the center, no magic. [01 Aug 1986, p.D1]

Howard the Duck' begins as a mild satire about a duck who fell to earth, but midway through, the star is upstaged by horrifying demons and dazzling light shows.

When the filmmakers grow tired of fowl puns -- about an hour after the audience does -- they switch to space opera, and Howard battles a scientist (Jeffrey Jones, funny against all odds) whose body is invaded by a giant lobster-scorpion space troll.

The story has no center; the duck is not likable, and the costly, overwrought, laser-filled special effects that conclude the movie are less impressive than a sparkler on a birthday cake.

Howard The Duck has several jokes, really, they're all just desperately unfunny.

The first half concerns our hero's satirical misadventures on earth, except that director Huyck has the comic finesse of Hulk Hogan. The second half is an overproduced orgy of car crashes and monsters, in which Howard must save the world from the Dark Overlords of the universe. George Lucas was the executive producer. The Force was not with him. [25 Aug 1986, p.63]

Howard the Duck, the movie, is as bad as you've heard. Actually, it's worse. But its failings as a film have overshadowed the frequently brilliant 1970s comic book that inspired it. Using only the most superficial elements of its source material while discarding most of what made the comic interesting, the film serves as a textbook example of how to turn something into nothing.

Greatest film of all time!!! An extraordinary, life-changing, enlightening, movie. MARVEL´s best movie yet. It is impossible to top. Everything about this movie is magnificent. The cast, the script, the special effects, the pacing, the tone, and the plot are GOD tier quality. It just makes sense.

So bad its good this movie just screams 80s and I love that but the story is genuinely awful and most of the acting is as well but it's still an incredibly weird but fun movie

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Just simply boring. Jokes are not funny, the whole film is generally forgettable, characters are uninteresting and the action is almost non-existent. There's absolutely no reason to watch it.

Almost as bad as Batman and Robin and is one of the worst comic book movies.