Smartaleck mallard Howard finds himself stranded on Earth. Howard befriends spunky aspiring rock singer Beverly (an appealing and energetic portrayal by Lea Thompson, who looks absolutely adorable) and must save our planet from an evil alien being that has possessed the body of kindly scientist Dr. Walter Jenning (Jeffrey Jones having a delightfully histrionic eye-rolling ball).

Director/co-writer Willard Huyck and co-writer Gloria Katz deserve praise for joyfully running with the absurd premise; this picture certainly rates as one of the most bizarre and ridiculous big budget movies to be produced and released by a major studio in the 1980's. Moreover, Huyck and Katz definitely nail the sense of go-for-broke pull-out-all-the-stops outrageous excess that permeated the 1980's: While this for the most part works in the film's favor (a wild action chase involving Howard flying a small plane is both funny and exciting in equal measure),said crazy excess does on occasion go a little too far (the infamous love scene between Howard and Beverly comes perilously close to being icky and distasteful). Tim Robbins contributes a lively turn as goofy'n'geeky lab assistant Phil Blumburtt. Richard Kline's slick cinematography, John Barry's dynamic score, and the flashy special effects are all up to par. Super catchy theme song and cool rock concert finale, too. A bit uneven and a tad overlong, but overall a real hoot and a half.

I was planning on just watching this movie as a joke, but then actually found myself enjoying this movie. Its not a cinematic masterpiece, but its definitely worth watching. I know that this is the type of movie that's bound to get some insults, but the amount of hatred towards it is honestly a bit surprising.

Sights and Sounds - The overall look of this movie is actually pretty decent, especially considering when it was made. The cinematography is just ok. Nothing spectacular, but certainly not boring. The audio was surprisingly good. I usually have a lot of trouble hearing what's being said in older movies, but I had no problems with this move. The costume (or puppet, I'm not entirely sure) for Howard is actually pretty good for the most part. Some of the effects are pretty bad, but for the time they're good.

Characters - The acting isn't that bad, but it isn't good by any means. Some of the line delivery is a bit iffy, but its not terrible. I mean, yes, some of the acting made me laugh through the "serious" parts, but its not as bad as it could be.

Tone - This movie is hilarious, especially when its not trying to be. There are actually a considerable number of scenes that are trying to be serious and dramatic, but they're way to funny. This movie is a comedy all the way through.

Plot - This movie probably shouldn't be rated PG. There's a lot of adult themes in this movie that could've been explored if they weren't trying to market this towards children. That being said, the plot is a bit simplistic for a lot of adults to enjoy. There are actually a lot of concepts in this movie that are actually pretty interesting. If this movie was remade with an R rating and a better script, I'd probably go see this. This movie isn't as bas as some people make it out to be, but that's not to say that it doesn't have potential.

When I checked out the reviews for HOWARD THE DUCK, I was flabbergasted to see that many people actually had the nerve to give this turkey of a film a 10. Now it IS possible for someone to like this family (after all, some people liked The Spice Girls and New Coke),but only a complete and total nut or a member of George Lucas' immediate family would consider this film to be on-par with GONE WITH THE WIND or CASABLANCA!!!! Ignore the sad individuals who deliberately over-score this film in order to boost it's overall rating to a still pathetic 3.9--it is a truly awful mess of a film.

Much of the cause for this monstrosity of a film can be placed on two major problems. First, making a movie out of the comic book was practically impossible and few people out there even cared about the concept in the first place. Second, with more money thrown into this than the space program, it couldn't help but create a huge backlash--people waiting to say "wow--they spent THAT much money and it SUCKED THAT badly!!"--and sucked it certainly did.

The movie also suffers from a horrid and often sick script. Double-entendres abound as well as naked duck-ladies from Howard's home planet (complete with boobs--a sight so disturbing I felt ill when they appeared out of no where) and references to sex between the duck and Earth ladies (yeccch). So, for all those who naturally assumed this would be a kids movie, it was insulting and gross and certainly NOT a film for the younger crowd.

Nasty, stupid, poorly scripted and with some of the worst dialog of any film I have ever seen (including many of Ed Wood's)--this is a mistake of monumental proportions. About the only mistake George Lucas made other than producing this abysmal film was his insistence that the public loved Jar-Jar Binks. Jar-Jar and Howard the duck are, collectively, Satan!