Sunday, May 11, 2014

Ducktales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp

After DuckTales became a hit television series, the Disney Company decided to make a film based off of it. Released August 3, 1990, the film starred Alan Young, Rip Taylor, Christopher Lloyd, Russi Taylor, and Terrene McGovern. While it earned $18 million at the box office, it isn’t considered a part of Disney Animated Canon, nor has it been given a wide DVD release in America.

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Scrooge, Launchpad, Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby arrive at a dig site where Scrooge’s diggers have found the map to the treasure of Collie Baba that he has been searching for forty years However, one digger, Dijion, works for the evil sorcerer Merlock (Lloyd) who is looking for the lamp that Collie Baba stole from him. While he steals the treasure, he missed the lamp that Webby had.
Back home, the kids discover the lamp contains a genie. Scrooge eventually finds out and wishes the treasure be brought back to him. However, Merlock and Dijon know that Scrooge has the lamp.

I remember seeing this on television a few times when I was young. And I always enjoyed watching it. But after seeing it again after 15 or so years, I find underwhelming to be a great way to describe this film. I still feel that it seems like an episode of the series stretched out to be 75 minutes. Usually, when a television series is made into a film, it’s given a grander scale and a bigger production value. Like Serenity. Yet, this just doesn’t feel like that until the last few minutes. And even then, it still like this film should have been a four part series finale instead of a feature film.
Scrooge is the only character who undergoes character development, however slight. After losing everything and being sent to prison, he doesn’t realize that money isn’t everything. He just resolves not to use a wish for selfish uses. And while his final wish is selfless towards the genie, he still ends the movie by chasing after money.
And while it does have its funny moments, there’s nothing really notable about it.


Final Call: It doesn’t really age well. #25

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