National Treasure: Edge of History

I've just binged through season 1. Frankly I am really surprised at the ratings and reviews here on IMDB. Seems like a lot of folks have an ax to grind with Disney. This was never intended as an intellectual masterpiece. It's a very simple family (primarily teenagers and younger) entertainment. I am a few decades past being a teen yet was a big fan of the National Treasure movies. This series is a pleasant resurection of an age old premise that works: a treasure hunt. I particularly liked and appreciated the homage paid to the original movies. The premise set up with agent Sandusky, the inclusion of artifacts from the films, and the integration of Riley into the story was delightful. Come on guys, TV can be just a pleasant pastime and this fills the bill. The actors are all fine, and it's always a delight to see Catherine Zeta Jones.

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!

So the films National Treasure 1&2 were decently acted and a good giggle. However this other than Harvey Keitel is nowhere near the films, it's virtually vomit inducing from the start. The acting is bad enough, have they just come from stage school or just found wandering the streets, but the script must be written by a 12 year old child who has not been or seen the real world in years? Disney have gone from bad to worse with virtually everything that they have touched recently but this is a step above anything else. They destroyed Star Wars, Marvel, Willow etc and have put the icing on the cake with this pathetic putrid rubbish. Horribly stupid and vile. At least it won't get a second season.

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.

If this is to engage younger audiences, then understandable. However don't write down and simplify narrative and story .... To broaden your audience because you get this drivel... I love Catherine Zeta Jones and Harvey Keitel. They were the only characters keeping me in. The lead young woman Lisette Olivers is also great... it's the supporting cast and the sloppy writing that makes me wish they all would fall into a well, never to be found. If Zuri Reed shouts "patriarchy" one more time I'm gonna throw my shoe at my tv. I get it, the original cast is too expensive en masse (I guess) but then spend on writers. This seems sooooooo boring but there's a great story tucked away. I cannot relate to any characters because they're just so naive, dumb and trivial... I don't care about any of them. Except for Catherine Zeta & Lisette.

ALSO! Disney! Stop being so lazy!!!! The last two relatively Hispanic characters have been named "Jess Valenzuela" and "America Chavez". Why not add a Lisa Porto Rico, James Brazilo and Gloria Chilis. It's juror terrible and lazy. I get it... "America Chavez" is a Marvel creation BUT she's a marvel creation from 2021..... so DO BETTER. Some of us brown people have names like, George, Abby, Peter with last names like Richards, Moro, and Jones.

The two takeaways from this rant... is your writing is poor and honestly superficial. I, and maybe more of us with a 4-5 star review do not care about these characters. Nor if they take on this adventure. Try harder with character development and names.

Also I love that Charley Koontz (Fat Neil) was in this!