Howard the Duck (5 Stars)

I consider this to be the quintessential cult film. The critics didn't like it. It was a box office failure. And yet it's more popular today than it ever was. It's not just Marvel fans who love the film. It's people who feel nostalgic about the 1980's. So what's so 80's-ish about it?

Beverly Switzler has an exaggerated 1980's big hairdo.

Her fellow members of the girl group Cherry Bomb also have big hair.

The girls in the all-girl biker gang have even bigger hair.

Their gang is called Satan's Sluts. I'd never call a woman a slut, whatever she might be like, but if they want to call themselves sluts it's up to them.

The film has smart product placement. Smart, but not very subtle.

Budweiser is shown several times in the film. They must have paid a lot. Or maybe they just gave free beer to the film crew.

In the opening scene Howard is drinking beer on his homeworld, but if you look carefully you can see it's called Birdweiser. The label is otherwise identical. I'm not much of a beer drinker, but I like Budweiser. It has a mild taste, because it's brewed with rice. The milder taste makes some people think it has less alcohol, but it's deceptive. Bottled Budweiser has 4.5% alcoholic content, which is average for beer, and it has more alcohol than Britain's most popular beer, Carling, which only has 4% alcohol.

Howard is a success story. He comes to Earth as an outcast, he saves the world, and he ends up as a rock star. In the disc's extra features the director Willard Huyck says he wanted to make a sequel, but that was impossible after the poor performance at the box office.

The film has gratuitous nudity: a duck taking a bath. Maybe the film would have been more successful with more nude scenes. This sexy young lady is drinking champagne in the bath. Ducks just wanna have fun.

If you're not a fan of Howard the Duck, the character or the film, why not? He had a cameo appearance in the after-credits scene of "Guardians of the Galaxy". He never got his sequel in the 1980's, but today's film fans are more enlightened and would welcome a new film starring Howard.

Success Rate:  - 0.7

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