Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas (U)
★★
AFTER achieving surprise success in its native Spain a few years ago, the jaunty and intrepid explorer of the title is back for another adventure. There’s a reason it will remind you of a certain other whip-cracking, hat-wearing adventurer – it’s not even trying to hide the comparison. As a not-so-subtle animated imitation of Indiana Jones, it comes off as cheap and barely has enough to stand on its own two feet.
Set a few years after 2012’s Tad the Lost Explorer – it’s set up so you don’t really need to have seen the first one – we catch up with archaeology student Tad (voiced in this English dub by Trevor White), working to pay off his college bills on a Chicago building site, far from the exotic locales of his adventurous missions.
When his eccentric mummified friend (Joseph Balderrama) unexpectedly turns up on his doorstep, Tad is convinced to head to Las Vegas to win the heart of his crush Sara (Alex Kelly), who is about to unveil her research into the legend of King Midas to the world.
Soon after arriving Sara is kidnapped by evil businessman Jack Rackham (Ramon Tikaram), who is on a ruthless search for the legendary power of turning anything to gold. Armed with a notebook Sara left behind that reveals the potential locations of King Midas’s secret treasure, Tad sets off with his mummy friend and his faithful dog Jeff to rescue her and stop Rackham from attaining that world-changing power.
There’s nothing particularly offensive about this cheery animated adventure. It’s just that it feels so derivative and slapdash; the character interplay, sight gags (Tad’s dog chewing on mummified bones et al), wacky chase hijinks and the animation style itself exude middle-of-the-road blandness even for the under-10 audience at whom it’s primarily aimed.
There are a couple of sequences and gags that raise a smirk or two but they’re few and very far between. At best this is a stepping stone for its young target audience who deserve bigger and better things, and despite its lively pacing, this is a fairly trying animation to get through.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here