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

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm here to review DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp which came out in theatres on August 3rd, 1990. So let's get right into it.

DuckTales the Movie was the first animated movie released by Walt Disney Pictures that wasn't produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, then known as Walt Disney Feature Animation. It was instead produced by Disney MovieToons, which later became Disneytoon Studios, the studio responsible for A Goofy Movie (1995) and all of the direct-to-video sequels that Disney was putting out in the '90s and 2000s. It came out the same year as the very first theatrically released animated sequel that Walt Disney Feature Animation did, The Rescuers Down Under. And like The Rescuers Down Under, DuckTales the Movie didn't do very well at the box office. The movie came out only three months before the show it's based on, DuckTales (1987-1990) finished it's original run in syndication though you don't need to have seen the show to watch this movie as only the setting (Duckburg) and the main Duck members (Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Mrs. Beakley, Webby, Launchpad McQuack, and Duckworth the Butler) appear in the movie, with none of the show's villains showing up at all.

The story is that Scrooge, the kids, and Launchpad are hunting for the lost treasure of Collie Baba (the Duckverse's version of Ali Baba), which is taken by the evil sorcerer Merlock (voiced by Christopher Lloyd) who is looking for Collie Baba's magic lamp, containing a Genie inside. However, Scrooge had given the lamp to Webby and the kids had released the Genie and hijinks ensues, because it's DuckTales and hijinks has to ensue. It's like a rule or something, I dunno 😏. Anyway I won't spoil anything in the movie, but that's the basic story right there.

Aside from Christopher Lloyd, June Foray (the voice of Scrooge's secretary), Rip Taylor (the voice of the Genie), and Richard Libertini (the voice of Merlock's stooge, Dijon), the cast is the same cast from the TV show, and they're all fantastic. I had never seen this movie before I watched it last night on VHS for this review, so I had no idea that Christopher Lloyd is in it. But as soon as I heard his voice coming out of Merlock's mouth, I knew right away who had voiced him without even looking it up on IMDB, Wikipedia, or the Disney Wiki. I wasn't surprised because Christopher Lloyd had done a few movies for Disney in the late '80s and throughout the '90s like Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Angels in the Outfield (1994), and My Favorite Martian (1999). 

While DuckTales was a show that I watched all the time when I was a kid, I'd never seen DuckTales the Movie until last night, as I mentioned a little bit earlier in this review when talking about the cast of the movie. I don't know why either. It might've been because it never aired on TV when I was growing up, the VHS release wasn't available at our local video store, and it didn't come out on DVD until 2006 and even then it didn't get a general retail release until 2015 as the 2006 DVD was a Disney Movie Club Exclusive. I enjoyed it. Even though I haven't watched DuckTales in about 30 years or so, this movie felt like a 75 minute episode of the show in terms of them not doing anything too wild as other movies based on TV shows that were coming out around that same time, like the Care Bears movies, and Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer (1986), had done. Yet, it still felt like a movie as well. Being that it was made by the same studio, A Goofy Movie feels the exact same way.

I got the VHS a month ago. Brad picked it up for me at Ottawa Comiccon since I wasn't able to go and that's how I watched it, even though I could've watched it on Disney+. The VHS came out on March 15th 1991, the same year that The Jungle Book (1967), Fantasia (1940) and The Rescuers Down Under were released and Dumbo (1941), Alice in Wonderland (1951), The Sword in the Stone (1964), and Robin Hood (1973) were all re-released on home video in the Walt Disney Classics collection. In fact the VHS for DuckTales the Movie has the same home video previews as the 1991 VHS edition of Robin Hood has, that shows the previews for The Jungle Book and The Rescuers Down Under that also appear on each other's VHS releases later that same year. So that was cool. 

Overall I enjoyed this movie. It's funny, it's exciting, and it was alot of fun to finally watch. Especially on VHS. As I said, it's on Disney+ so if you haven't seen it before you can do so on there. I definitely recommend it. 

That's it for me for today folks. I'll be back tomorrow with the next installment of my DC Comics's Star Trek retrospective, where I'll be looking at the ongoing monthly Star Trek: The Next Generation series that was published from 1989 until 1996. So until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.