TV Series Review: National Treasure: Edge of History (2023, Disney+) *No Spoilers*

TV Series Review: National Treasure: Edge of History (2023, Disney+) No Spoilers

National Treasure: Edge of History One Sheet

While I wouldn't say I was a huge fan of the National Treasure movies staring Nicolas Cage, I did find them enjoyable and would have certainly watched another if more were made in the series (or is it 'franchise' when we're talking movies?).

Having finally gotten around to watching the new Disney+ series National Treasure: Edge of History I'm honestly not sure who the creators think their audience is, because it's definitely not me?

At this point I've watched six episodes and I'm intending to push through until the end but I'm finding it a difficult watch because at age 52 the show feels heavily skewed towards teenage girls, or at a stretch young adults in general. There's also a very CW show vibe that I'm getting that screams 'budget' television more than any attempt to give the series a 'movie' like quality. Which Disney has done with some of its Marvel based TV series.

Not even the inclusion of Catherine Zeta Jones - who I did not know was in the show until she appeared on screen - is giving me something to keep me hooked. She's actually pretty good in this, and I'm sure she was excited to have a lot more screen time here than she got in Wednesday. It's just that her character is a fairly straight forward villain who will do almost anything to get what she wants (well she won't but her hench people will).

I'm kind of hoping her character, Billie Pearce, gets a little more depth added in the backend of the series but it's not looking promising.

The premise of the show, which does continue on from the movies and is in the same timeline, Jess Valenzuela (Lisette Olivera), a 20-year-old Dreamer, sets off on an exploration to discover the mystery of her family history, and, with the help of her friends, seeks to recover historical lost treasure.

While I have no issue with Nicolas Cage's main character role in the movies now being played by a female (to be clear Jess is an entirely new character and not just a gender swapped Ben Gates) she seems to know quite a lot of the answers just through a quick glance, and is very street smart about all kinds of things you wouldn't expect a 'dreamer' to really be clued into.

At the same time Billie Pearce is like a much older and well resourced version of Jess and seems to know quite a lot of the puzzle solutions with just a quick glance and her own history knowledge - which is a little more believable for her character given she's had a considerable head start on finding the 'treasure'.

The two main issues I'm having is, quite a bit of the show's emphasis is on the relationships between Jess and her friends, and the puzzle solving.

Jess and her friends are all paired up in various relationships with each other. While these relationships, to an extent, inform the overall story, they do get too much emphasis at times. To the point where it seems like the show is just about the relationships and... oh, yeah, remember, we were looking for a treasure.

We're basically following the love lives of four couples over the season - well three and one former couple sort of. It's a lot, and is the main reason I'm getting CW vibes and that Young Adult audience target market.

As far as the puzzles go, while I don't think the movies ever really gave the viewer a chance to solve them, they did seem to give you more steps to follow in understanding the logic. Plus they were better linked into familiar, real world history as something that 'just might be true'.

In the series, as Jess solves a written puzzle we get the familiar light up overlay solution seen in movies but so many times I don't really even know what I'm looking at? The solution is there in front of me but I get no sense of how clever Jess has been in solving it because I just didn't understand the question in the first place.

You'd think, in a ten episode series, they'd have time to explain the clues and puzzles more but instead the relationships seem to get a lot more attention.

If this show gets a second season it does have potential but I still doubt fans of the original movies are the target market. It seems like the creators simply wanted to take an established property and introduce it to a new audience because there's very little here to bring the original movie fans along for the ride. It just doesn't have the same feel or credibility.

To be honest Catherine Zeta Jones might have been a better choice as the star/lead character just because she seems like she has the life experience to be a puzzle solver and history buff of the caliber of Ben Gates. Maybe Jess could have been more of the Riley Poole role, and we'd have kind of a Master and Apprentice type team going forward.

Though I guess Catherine's demographic isn't exactly the audience this is intended for either?

If you're looking for the magic of the films, you won't find too much of it here. However if you're a fan of CW shows that aren't superheroes and are more ensemble relationship dramas with a bit of a mystery thrown in, this could well be for you.

Comments

Movie Review: A Complete Unknown (2024) No Spoilers

Y ou would think the Bob Dylan story would be 'wind-swept and interesting,' to quote Billy Connelly, however, despite A Complete Unknown being quite an engaging film, it feels like it missed the years that really shaped him as a song writer/performer. The film starts in 1961, with a then unknown, 19-year-old Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arriving in New York City with his guitar. From there he forges relationships with musical icons on his meteoric rise, culminating in a groundbreaking performance that reverberates around the world. The problem being, according to this film, Dylan arrived in New York, for the most part, fully formed as a folk singer/song writer. In virtually no time he makes a very important connection that puts him on the trajectory of doing the work and becoming a name, before making his world changing performance. While there is some drama behind the scenes with his various relationships, none of it is particularly unique to any number of up and com...

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Movie Review: Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) No Spoilers

I would not call myself a comic book fan of Hellboy. I've never read a single comic about him. My sum total knowledge of the character comes from the first two live action films, Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), staring Ron Pearlman in the titular role. Essentially I'm a fan of those two films. Particularly Ron's portrayal of the character. I've been wanting to see the two later reboot attempts, in particular, David Harbor's run at the character in, Hellboy (2019), but reviews suggested I'd be disappointed if I spent any extra on them beyond a streaming service subscription. I missed David's Hellboy when it was on streaming, and currently I think you can only rent or buy it. However, Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) surfaced, at no extra cost on Amazon Prime, so I decided to give it a go. The poster says it's the fourth installment in the franchise, so I guess these films are loosely set in the same continuity and are all the sa...

James Gunn's Social Media Monkeys Joke Was a Highlight of His Superman Movie For Me

B efore James Gunn's Superman Movie was released there was a whole rumor going around that the movie would feature monkeys on computers trolling Superman's social media, sparking much outrage. #supersh*t. I didn't know this was even a thing until just prior to writing this article. I did a search to see if anyone had posted a clip of the monkeys scene from the movie and got pages of discourse featuring videos and articles prior to the film. Most of it from Gunn detractors (let's say) seeing it as some kind of childish swipe at them... well not them specifically but, you know, those other people who have every right to hate on anything sight unseen. Anyway, I'm not going to give even one such example a link or air because it's kind of sad watching someone devote so much commentary to a throw away gag that is absolutely a nod to James Gunn's Superman trolls. The whole reason this post exists, is to say I loved the joke, because fourteen years ago, and I...

I'm Joining the Illuminati Brotherhood By Personal Invitation of Hiltom Rothschild... Wait, What?

How special am I to have finally come of age (53 years young) and am now eligible to participate in building the world alongside other members of the Illuminati Brotherhood... Yes I've received the call by way of an email, which I'm sure is real because I had to translate it from the Dutch language and it was personally written by Hiltom Rothschild, one of the non-existent members of the Rothschild family (or perhaps deep undercover because Google has never heard of them?). A Transcript of the email below: To: etourist From: Illuminati Brotherhood Subject: Illuminati Broederschap (Illuminati Brotherhood) I am Hiltom Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild family, one of the 13 families of the Illuminati brotherhood. I'm here to let you know that you've come of age and are eligible to participate in building the 🌎 world. It is a calling and a privilege to honor him with pride and gratitude as not everyone will ever be chosen by the LIGHT, many are called but few are ch...

Movie Review: Superman (2025) No Spoilers

T he one thing I like about James Gunn as a comic book movie director is that he leans into the comic book nature of the world and the characters. He's not trying to do a realistic take on any of the characters. He's simply bringing the comics to life. It's still his take on the characters, but he doesn't shy away from their comic book origins. James Gunn's Superman is very much a comic book movie in every sense. Nothing is off the table because it's too 'comic-booky' and might look silly in a live action film. To me that's incredibly liberating. It lets James actually tell a proper Superman story that isn't hamstrung by reality, or tip toeing into the fantastical just enough to allow Superman to exist in the real world. Superman begins in the middle of a battle. Metropolis is under attack by a super powered being known as 'Hammer of Boravia', however everything is not as it seems, and Superman (David Corenswet) must work with other s...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - World's Most Boring Government Re-elected by Landside - We're Even More Fine!

Anthony Albanese Victory by ChatGPT and TET. W hen I started writing about the 2025 Federal election the polls were suggesting the world's most boring government was crusing to a defeat . As it turns out, boring is good, and Australia wants more of it, handing the current government a landslide win with a majority vote. Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win a consecutive term, and the first Labor PM since Bob Hawke to do so. Some of that comes down to the leadership revolving door both major parties had through the mid 2000s. Although Anthony is my preferred PM over Dutton the irony is Dutton sounds more like a leader with a fairly commanding voice and an ability to speak well, without sounding like he's waffling and dodging questions, even if he is. Anthony, on the other hand, does have the ability (and speech writer) to say a lot of inspiring things but it gets lost in the delivery. He doesn't seem to know when to emphasise a point for effect. In h...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog