DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990)

DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp  (Dir: Bob Hathcock, 1990). 

Originally posted on Instagram 28/05/19:

Inspired by Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck comics from the 1940s to 1960s, Disney’s DuckTales was a weekday animation series that premiered on US TV in 1987. The show proved a massive hit with audiences and critics, running 4 seasons and 100 episodes and spawned the 1990 theatrical feature film DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp. 

The long form adventure stories of Barks formed the basis of many DuckTales episodes and would seem ideally suited to feature length adaptation. However for DuckTales the Movie an original story was created that drew upon both Barks and the stories of the Arabian Nights. 

While treasure hunting in the Middle East, Scrooge McDuck and his nephews, accompanied by pilot Launchpad, housemaid’s grandaughter Webby and dubious guide Dijon stumble across a lost, sand covered pyramid in the Egyptian desert, resting place of the fabled Lost Treasure of Collie Baba. Among the riches is a seemingly worthless lamp which Scrooge discards but is rescued by Webby. Dijon, meanwhile, is in the employ of evil sorcerer Merlock who steals the treasure, minus the lamp and sends Scrooge home empty handed. On arriving home in Duckburg, Webby and the nephews discover the lamp contains a magical genie and before long Merlock and Dijon are back to secure the lamp for the sorcerer who wishes to use it for his evil doings. 

The Barks-esq opening scenes of DuckTales are easily the movie’s best. The story lags somewhat in the Duckburg bound middle act but is back on form for an exciting climax drawn from the Arabian Nights and similar in execution to Disney’s own contemporarily produced adaptation of Aladdin (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1992). 

The animation, while perhaps a step down from the classic Disney features is a notch up from the TV series and the voice work, particularly Alan Young as Scrooge and Christopher Lloyd as Merlock is excellent. 

Underperforming slightly at the box office, there was to be no feature length sequel. The DuckTales franchise continued for a number of years, fittingly, in comic book form and was successfully rebooted for TV in 2017. 

While DuckTales the Movie is not quite the adventure that Carl Barks aficionados may have hoped for, it is still an exciting, well executed fun movie. Treasure of the Lost Lamp is, indeed, a gem.