Howard the Duck: Dumb, stupid, and one of the best movies of the 80s

I know this movie gets a terrible rep. I google searched “terrible 80s movies” as I was wondering what I should write about next and out pops up Howard the Duck to go along with Cannibal Campout and Slumber Party Massacre II (anyone got copies of these I can borrow?). But really? Maybe it’s my strong sense of nostalgia, including having watched this several times as a kid, probably when I wasn’t feeling great and wanted to just watch movies, but I loved Howard and I bet most people who’ve seen it secretly do too.

The movie centers on Howard, voiced by Chip Zien (who no one will remember from anything important ever) and physically played by Ed Gale (I can’t believe this is the same person who was in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey as Station, holy bleep), as he is unwillingly transported from his home world, full of living ducks, to Earth. There, he falls in love with Beverly (Lea Thompson), and tries to send himself back home with the help of a scientist, Phil Blumbertt (Tim Robbins, who is never not amazing). It’s much more complicated than that, and yes, Howard, who is a duck, falls in love with Beverly, who also loves him back, and things…happen. You see how this might go off the rails and become one of the worst movies of the 80s. I mean, duck on human sex isn’t something that an Oscar-caliber movie is going to get away with.

Those who harp on the weirdness of Howard the Duck are missing the point entirely, though. This film is a great piece of 80s fluff, made in the same vain as Back to the Future or Gremlins. No, it’s not as good as those two, but it’s almost as much fun to watch a duck with the attitude of a down-on-his-luck 40-year-old man beat people up and get thrown around himself. It’s full of bad puns, 80s action sequences with mostly practical effects, and the rapport between the actors, for a movie as supposedly terrible as this one, is pretty entertaining. I love Lea Thompson and Tim Robbins, so maybe I’m being partial, but don’t you love them too? And I can’t imagine Howard being any more endearing than he is here. Sure, the idea has been floated of making another Howard the Duck movie, but it’s like saying you’d rather watch Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in all their CGI glory and with zero personality, than the old 90s version, which was a childhood classic. Why was it a classic? Because everyone knows how ridiculous the whole enterprise is, from the actors and directors to the special effects people, yet the actors let their personality flow freely through, making it campy but heartfelt. They don’t care that they’re dressed up in stupid costumes! LET THE ONE-LINERS FLOW THROUGH MY VEINS!@$%^#

For sure, this movie is a strange bird (yes, you see what I did there). It has–spoiler alert—space aliens, a duck civilization that’s close to our own, and duck on human sexual innuendo. But who cares? I’d watch it every time it’s on tv because it makes me smile when Howard says, “That's it, no more Mr. Nice Duck” or “No one laughs at a master of Quack Fu!” People take things way too seriously, as if there needs to be some grandiose point about the world in every movie to make it “good.” I enjoy those movies as much as anyone too (see The Assassination of Jesse James). But guess what? Some movies are made to be dumb and stupid, and I like having dumb, stupid fun. And I’ll be damned if Howard isn’t as fun as anything the 80s has ever made.