| Universal Pictures | Release Date: August 1, 1986 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
1
Mixed:
6
Negative:
15
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Critic Reviews
Howard the Duck manages to be two or three types of fun: as a crazy comedy, it has some good risque/sick jokes to go along with its messy slapstick and bland rock music; as a monster movie, it has an outstanding performance from Jeffrey Jones as a scientist-cum-monster and an astonishingly repulsive Dark Overlord of the Universe shows up for the exciting climax.
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In Howard the Duck, the special effects -- and the Muppety duck jokes -- command so much attention that it's easy to overlook the movie makers' clever narrative touches. It's rather fitting, for example, that Howard is shown to be almost as much of a misfit on the duck world as he is on Earth. And there's a sometimes-touching, sometimes-hilarious Fay Wray-King Kong relationship established between Howard and a sexy, baby-faced rock singer named Beverly (Lea Thompson). The main reason the relationship is so intriguing is that Thompson always keeps you guessing about her character's true feelings for the cantankerous bird. It's hard to fault the tongue-in-bill high spirits of a movie like Howard the Duck.
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Pic lapses into formulaic predictability with nearly an hour of frenetic chase scenes and technically perfect explosions from Industrial Light & Magic. Action comes sporadically alive in scenes with scientist Jones, who becomes possessed by the spirit of an evil Dark Warlord that entered his body during the same fateful mishap that brought Howard to Earth. There is an abundant amount of special effects wizardry that emanates mostly from Jones as he transforms into a monster, but it is not spectacularly unique enough to distinguish this film from other, more entertaining, sci-fi thrillers.
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