Though I knew of its infamy, I'd never actually sat down and watched "Howard The Duck" before, so noticing that it's currently available on Sky Movies, and with a spare evening, I thought now was the opportune time.
Howard (Jordan Prentice & Chip Zien (primarily)) from a planet where the duck, rather than monkey, was the dominate species, is transported across the Galaxy, to Earth, where, despite his appearance he connects with Beverly (Lea Thompson) a struggling rock singer. Their attempts to find a way for Howard to return to his own planet are assisted by Beverly's friend Phil (Tim Robbins), who brings in Dr. Jenning (Jeffrey Jones) but their research only results is something much worse being brought to Earth.
So, no. It's not good. Not good at all. Particularly for the first half. Tonally it's all over the place, with duck playboy magazine and the visit to the brothel feeling at odds with the PG Certificate. The plot takes an age to get going and the set pieces are dull or incomprehensible. The acting is terrible, from some pretty big names too - what is Tim Robbins doing? It's also not helped that time hasn't been kind to the very 80's sensibilities, from the awful band, to the massive hair, to the outfits that everyone wears to the weird Rock club, to the generic 80's street thugs.
But is its reputation as one of the worst films of all time actually warranted? Not really, of course it was a financial failure and essentially ended up costing Lucas Pixar, but those consequences shouldn't really be considered when appraising the movie. Does "The Shawshank Redemptions" initial financial failure affect people's opinions of that film? The second half of the movie is alright, when the plot finally starts. I actually quite like the effects for the evil overlords race, I'm a bit of a sucker for stop motion animation.
Whilst never approaching a level you would describe as "good" the film is, never the less, rather unfairly grouped in during the "worst of all time" conversations and Howard himself is overdue his full MCU reboot.
