Rating of
2.5/4
Not bad, but it is a B-Movie
The M.O.W. - wrote on 08/02/08
"Howard" (voiced by Chip Zien,and performed by Ed Gale, Yim Rose, Steve Sleap, Peter Baird, Mary Wells, Lisa Sturz and Jordan Prentince) is an average duck who has just got home from wherever and checks his messages and his newest issue of "Playduck," which he has a subscription to. As he is relaxing while thumbing through his magazine, he feels his chair begin to violently shake. Seconds later he and his chair are going through his apartment building's walls and eventually over the streets of "Marshington, DC". As he is screaming, those on the streets look up in shock.
Suddenly, "Howard" is flying through space itself and lands on a strange world that appears to be similar to his home, but it is inhabited by strange, featherless creatures who are taller than him. After his first experience with these strange creatures, he finds a female one (Lea Thompson) being harassed by a couple of males. After using the martial art known as "Quack Fu" to fend off the males, he learns from the female that he is in Cleveland. Then, after angrily talking with himself out loud and mistaking the place as the name of the planet, she explains that he is on Earth.
After gathering her senses, and realising she isn't imagining a clothes-wearing, cigar smoking talking duck, she takes him back to her place and introduces herself as "Beverly" and explains that she is in a up and coming band called "Cherry Bomb."
"Beverly" asks for help in trying to figure out "Howard" from an assistant at a museum (Tim Robbins), who is the on-again-off-again boyfriend of a member of "Cherry Bomb."
Eventually, "Phil" (Robbins) introduces "Beverly" and "Howard" to "Dr. Walter Jenning" (Jeffrey Jones) who explains that an experiment he was heading brought "Howard" from his planet to Earth. But they don't realize until it's too late that the experiment brought something even more dangerous to Earth.
Now, "Howard", with the help of his new friends, have to save the world from what could be its worst threat ever.
The first thing you can't help but see is the duck costumes. Compared to full-body outfits made today, they look pretty cheap and fake. However, they are still nicely constructed. The duck bills move in perfect sync with the audio and the eyes even blink, even if they don't look realistic or in a place on the head that resembles more of the location of human eyes than that of a duck.
There are a few flaws with the movie. The first is the script. The story is pretty good, but the dialogue is a bit on the weak side. Because of the weak dialogue, the performances suffer a bit. Zien and those who brought "Howard" to life, and Thompson does a pretty good job with the flawed dialogue. Robbins does a fairly memorable job as a bumbling nerdish character, but doesn't go out of his way to go over the top like he could have in some scenes.
Another problem is that the supporting cast is poorly developed. At least one supporting character is seen more than the others, and that doesn't help when it becomes obvious that one of them is directly affected by the threat.
Now, it might be because of the fact that the movie is over 20 years old, but the special effects are really weak. It is obvious that the electrical bolts and other electricity-based special effects were animated in during post-production. Then, the threat that was also brought to Earth is obvious a stop-animation creature that was also added into the scene. You also get some fairly weak makeup effects on a certain member of the human cast.
There are some bad parodies in this movie that may give you a few chuckles, but that's all. You won't really laugh while watching the movie. Some other jokes, which are purely visual, are a little more for adults than kids. There really isn't anything dirty, nor is the language too colorful. You may get a few "damns" here and there though.
Despite the flaws, it really isn't that bad of a movie. It's fairly cute actually. You may like it a little more if you are a fan of the Marvel Comics Group publications that it is based on, but you might be disappointed in the fact that it really isn't a complete adaptation. I would say check it out the next time you see it on TV if nothing else is on.
