National Treasure: Edge of History

Not sure why there is so much hate for this. But most of the reviews seem to be written after only two episodes, so are clearly just people whinging for the sake of it.

It's a bit slower than the films (for obvious reasons), and has a very tedious link to the original movies, but i did not think it was anywhere as near as bad as the reviews i have read on here.

I will be continuing on with the rest of the show, as i think it is worth watching.

But like others, I'm still hoping they make a 3rd movie with the original cast before cage gets too old to pull it off (possibly already at that stage) or at least complete the story they left us hanging on.

This definitely feels like a CW show, but not necessarily in a bad way. It still has a lot of the charm of the original, albeit without Nic Cage, Sean Bean, or Diane Kruger lending their charisma. Some of the clues and character decisions are cheesey, but so were the ones in the original movies. The historical references are...dubious, but again so were the ones in the original movies. Some of the dialogue is over the top, but not irredeemably so. They also got several actors from the movies to lend their talents, which is nice.

Overall despite a few drawbacks it's a fun romp, and definitely more enjoyable than Peacock's "The Lost Symbol," which I felt kind of lost the charm of the movies it was based on.

I've got through the first two episodes, find it interesting enough. Realize this IS NOT going to be extravagant like the movies, and slower burn as it's a series. It has no more plot devices than the movies either, so don't hang on that withering piece of fruit from other reviewers...

On to the review.

First episode is getting to know Jess and her friend Tess. Setup is on par with Laura Croft IMO, makes sense for this type of character. I think she's a little too curious, too quickly but they have to start somewhere. Love that, just like in the movies, she's taking in info, looking for clues, acting on them, stuff happens. A pleasant cameo by a certain master mason from movies is a great touch. I'm looking forward to seeing how the world building progresses, story unfolds, and treasures to be found.

If any of you remember the 90's, Disney was great at taking established successful stories and turning their sequels into junk. Lately all this Disney plus stuff has felt like that. Other than Star Wars, most of the marvel stuff, willow, and now this. I will still watch them but very disappointed. Mandalorian bad batch, and Andor have all been relatively huge successes compared to anything else original that Disney plus is putting out. National treasure started from cheesy but entertaining films. Nicholas cage made those movies fun. How can disney think they can do this without him? He is an icon!

This series is actually very enjoyable if you can get over one glaring problem. Every 10 min the writers felt they needed to make a social justice comment. The characters constantly spew out irrelevant and non-sensical statements about racism, poverty, indigenous issues, LGTBQ issues, feminist, etc, etc, etc. That's all and fine but they make no sense to the story or the series. They are just there hanging out like a big zit on their nose. Could they not just make a National Treasure story? It was compelling and exciting. The characters were well developed. But I suspect that one of the new "diversity" producers or writers got to the script and simply added all this nonsense. It really does take away from the series and is a major reason it was not renewed.