Ticktocker's Journeys: a review of the series "National Treasure: Edge of History"
A tortured sequel to the adventure franchise starring Nicolas Cage from the Disney+ streaming service.
Jess (Lisette Oliviera) meets former FBI agent Peter Sadusky (Harvey Keitel), who is dying. He bequeaths to find the treasure of Montezuma, hidden by the women of the Mayan, Aztec and Inca tribes from the Spanish conquerors. The heroine and her friends try to find out the location of the treasure, but the treacherous collector Billie Pierce (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is already on their trail.
Nostalgia for the "good old days" may not be a disease in the strict psychiatric sense, but almost everyone suffers from it to one degree or another. Disney, the main purveyor of therapeutic drugs, once again remembers the audience pining for the good old days and unearths from its collection "Treasure of the Nation" from 2004 - not all of it successful, but a fascinating conspiracy film for the whole family. The story of mythical relic seekers gets a new zoot-era cast: while Nicolas Cage in the original films dreamed of stealing the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the hybrid teenagers here in 20 try to reconstruct the chronology of their own country's origin and get to the bottom of it, the treasure of Montezuma, with vague and sometimes discomforting results.
Jess did not know her father, who died years ago and, according to her mother, was an antique thief, after which she vowed to prevent a similar fate for her offspring. But the craving for the unknown will inevitably make itself felt: Jess knows how to do puzzles, which minute her friends admire (everyone would have such validation), and thus, and the mysteries of the century with ease will subjugate themselves. Only one real problem looms on the horizon that, with the proper lighting, would make a great dramatic case: Jess is in the DACA program, which prohibits deportation of migrants if they arrive in the U.S. before their majority. Any misstep or interest of the authorities could deprive the girl of a bright future and a dream job in the cryptography department of the FBI. Thus begins a race against time and "dangerous" goons led by rich girl Catherine Zeta-Jones in a blond wig.
Adding references to the teenage reality of 2022, Marianne and Cormac Wibberly, the showrunners of On the Edge of History, lose all connection with the audience and give away their own, far from young age, reminiscent of the Steve Buscemi and skateboard meme. How do you do, kids: we have no idea how to recreate the spirit of a long-forgotten franchise, but we'll put one character in line for sneakers, another handed a YouTube channel and the ability to hack into any security system in a minute. Jess herself is a far cry from Cage's Ben Franklin, who is hardly a model of drama, and is tiresomely sketchy in her ambitions. The Wibberlys, who wrote the scripts for both parts of the feature-length Treasure, have worked virtually nowhere since, which is immediately striking. The duo is ripped out of the context of the surrounding reality, replacing the text with foam, and their attempts to level the plot chasm with jokes are met with inexorable failure. Visually, On the Edge of History is even more sparse, filling the space with nightmarish CGI.
It is unknown if Cage would have saved the situation if the creators had invited him (the actor is expected to appear in the second season), but for loyal fans who have not had time to be disappointed, familiar faces will still be found in the show. Keitel returns to a cameo as Agent Sadusky, and Franklin Riley's sidekick (Justin Bartha) now works as a podcaster and is sure to tell the characters which direction to take next. The young cast tries to look enthusiastic and lively (the bottom line is just the opposite), only Zeta-Jones, who found a new vocation after Wansday, adds camp and charm. May the Disney bosses, who have danced on the bones of more than one franchise, rather find it.
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