HOWARD THE DUCK (1986) Blu-Ray

 HOWARD THE DUCK (1986, UNIVERSAL PICTURES, BLURAY)

Alien lifeform Howard T. Duck, who resembles an anthropomorphic Earth waterfowl, finds himself transported to and stranded on an strange new world, known by the natives as "Cleveland, Ohio".

While there, he makes the acquaintance of Beverly (Leah Thompson), an aspiring musician and her lab assistant friend (Tim Robbins), who both begin assisting Howard in making his stay here on Earth more tolerable while seeking for a means to transport him back home (to "Duckworld", naturally).

Things start going "afowl" ....ha! see what I did there?  It's called "deft wordplay".....or, possibly daft wordplay, because the level of humor I presented there pretty much matches the level on display in the film...

Holy shit, that looks painful.

 Anyways, things start getting nutty when the scientists who inadvertently brought Howard to Earth try to replicate the experiment, accidentally bringing something darker and evil to our plane of existence,  prompting Howard and his pals into heroism as they try and stop the sinister force from taking over the world.

Our heroes, folks.

 Oh....and there's a pretty bad-ass stop motion monster in the climax.

See?  Told ya.

Okay.....admittedly,  HOWARD THE DUCK is a trainwreck of a movie.  But it's one of those entertaining, watchable types of trainwreck that makes you kinda sit back in awe, astonished by the mere fact that it was made.  Had it been made using some of the original concepts bandied about during it's development phase....animated duck being one of the primary ideas they should have went with....it might be viewed as brilliant today.

But there's a charm to the 1986 film that's inescapable. It's one of those films that you either totally get....or you hate....and it's likely that whatever camp you fall into, it's ironically for the same reasons.

The first issue of the original 1970s series

Marvel Comics fanboys and Lucasfilm aficionados (like myself) tend to be more forgiving of the film.  Hey, it's not the best example of a comic book property being adapted,  nor is it the worst (ask me sometime on my opinions on that....ahem....1990's CAPTAIN AMERICA....ahem), and in the draught of the 1980s concerning superhero films between SUPERMAN 2 and 1989's BATMAN...we took what we could get and liked it.

Prior to seeing it theatrically in 1986, I was already a Howard supporter, being a fan of the character's 1970s comic book exploits. 

Howard's current comic book exploits

And, surprisingly,  the Duck ain't dead.  He's been starring in a few contemporary Marvel books dedicated to his misadventures (which are pretty hilarious) and if you stuck around for the end credits tease in 2013's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, you'd have seen a recognizable feather there, so here's hoping we get further fowl influenced films coming in the future from Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe....

Howard's appearance in the end credits sting of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY