Howard the Duck (PG)
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This came out in 1986. I'm fairly sure that I saw it at some point, either on TV or VHS, in the late 80s or early 90s. And I'm pretty sure I didn't like it, at the time. But by the time I watched it on DVD in 2018, not a single thing about the movie was familiar to me. At all. I do vaguely remember at some point saying something about it on some website or message board or whatever, which could have been anywhere from the mid-90s to the early 2000s. Or maybe I was saying something about the comic book on which the movie was based, despite the fact that I have never read the comics (which I'm pretty sure I had no idea existed until the movie came out, or possibly not even until much later). I don't know what I said, but it was negative, and I got called out for it, and then I apologized for whatever I said. Because I realized it was unfair to judge the source material based solely on the movie. Furthermore, I'm now thinking that my opinion of the movie may have been at least partially based not on the movie itself, but on my knowledge of its having been a box office bomb and critically panned. And certainly I'm willing to believe that the comic books were probably a lot better than the movie. But having watched it again, I must say that this time I kind of liked it. I mean, it's still totally redonkulous, but these days I have more of a taste for redonkulous things. And I can also appreciate things that seem absurd, but which aren't necessarily so. Let me explain...

The movie begins with an apartment on a world much like our own. The camera pans around to show us just how much like our own world it is. It's obvious that the culture is in many ways identical to ours, except that the dominant species on that world obviously evolved from ducks. Okay, so... it's completely unrealistic that so many things are ridiculous puns based on that fact, because that would only make sense from the perspective of people who aren't actually evolved from ducks, and are therefore in on the joke. But aside from the ridiculous puns... I don't see any reason not to suspend disbelief and just accept that such a world exists, and take it seriously. Anyway, once we've gotten a sense of what the world is like based on the items in the apartment, we see the resident of that apartment, a perfectly normal duck person named Howard. Then suddenly, without warning and for no apparent reason, Howard and his chair get caught in some kind of tractor beam-like force that drags them through the walls of his building, up into the air, then into outer space, ultimately transporting them to Earth.

It is quite understandable that Howard would be freaked the hell out by this experience. Who wouldn't be? And immediately after his arrival here, a series of very bad experiences befall him, which he is in no mental state to deal with. He ends up spending the night in a trash can in an alley. But later, he emerges to rescue a woman from a couple of assholes who are harassing her. Despite the fact that Howard is about half their size (he's basically the size of a little person), he apparently knows a martial art called "Quack Fu," and manages to fight them off. The woman he rescued, Beverly (Lea Thompson), is the lead singer from a struggling rock band called Cherry Bomb, who had previously been seen during one part of the series of misfortunes that befell Howard when he first arrived on Earth (in Cleveland, to be precise). She, naturally, is a bit freaked out to have been rescued by a talking, anthropomorphic duck. But she's also grateful, and soon invites him back to her apartment. The next day, she takes him to meet a "scientist" friend of hers named Phil Blumburtt (Tim Robbins), hoping he can help figure out how Howard got here, and how to get him back home.

At first, Phil seems to be of no help at all. So Howard and Bev leave. After that, some other things happen that I don't really need to go into. Eventually, Phil returns with a couple of other people, including a scientist named Dr. Walter Jenning, who, it would seem, actually can be of some help. At least, we finally learn how Howard got to Earth. Unfortunately... any hope of returning Howard to his homeworld soon take a backseat to a totally out-of-left-field plot development that quickly takes the movie in a much stranger direction than it had been going, up to that point. (Which is really saying something.) I don't want to spoil what that plot development is, which means I can't really say any more about the plot, from this point onward.

So... yeah, it's a really weird movie. It starts weird, and gets progressively weirder. But I'd say it's also fairly amusing. And at the same time... I dunno, it just makes me want to point out that thinking it's weird specifically because Howard and his entire race are evolved from ducks is kind of anthrocentric bullshit. (Honestly, I've always had a problem with people treating Ewoks differently than humans. To me, a sentient race is a sentient race. So why should duck people be any different? There are plenty of reasons to think the movie is weird, but IMO, that shouldn't be one of them.) Aaaaaand... I guess that's all I can think to say.