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Let’s Get This Out of the Way: The New Disney Plus Series National Treasure: Edge of History is not the successor of National treasure someone expected. It’s not even stepping to National Treasure: Book of Secretsthe sequence that does not involve theft of historical documents (but does involve some mild kidnapping of the president).

Instead of, Boundary of History reboots as a “requel,” starting with new character Jess (Lisette Alexis) as she struggles to unravel the treasure-hunting legacy her father (also a new character) left behind. Behind her is Billie Pearce (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a more nefarious treasure hunter who is eager to find the Aztec relic and more than willing to use underhanded techniques to defeat Jess there. Unfortunately for her, Jess is an expert puzzle solver and history buff, something we know about her character early on, when she’s confidently recounting the history of Freemasonry to her boss, or else solving the escape room. simpler or elaborate. of all time.

Creators Cormac and Marianne Wibberley make some obvious moves to update the National Treasure franchise on the fly here, with Jess being a DREAMer and more concretely rooting the National Treasure in America’s indigenous history. The relic she seeks is just one of three, a product of the Aztec, Inca, and Mayan network that worked together to hide Montezuma’s gold. It’s also almost the hardest part to swallow.

No one is here to criticize the history of the National Treasury; this is a film series that is based strictly on Nicolas Cage’s cool and confident reading of “I’m Going to Steal the Declaration of Independence”. The original film was a certified goofy gem that had some historic funny bones in its body and that was this🇧🇷

Photo: Brian Roedel/Disney

Boundary of History invites a bit more scrutiny: by updating the trope of treasure hunters to make it more progressive, he paints with a broad brush, whitewashing the indigenous communities ostensibly at the center of the story. It’s Disney Channel Prestige, taking its fluffy source material seriously while accidentally homogenizing indigenous Latin American cultures at the same time. It sure is trying, but in execution, it’s a cultural erasure that capitalizes on the moment. It might be a little easier to accept if the rest of the show didn’t exist in the uncanny valley between irony and sincerity, but this is a franchise built on small graces bestowed. The simple thrill of a treasure map on the back of one of the nation’s founding documents now seems like a high-risk move, and therefore a slightly bigger mistake.

So if we postulate that the National Treasury isn’t trying to sweat the story too much, we can focus on the parts that matter: the escape room and all its puzzles.

Boundary of History joins a recent wave of entertainment that makes escape rooms seem like the sickest, most impossibly tricky puzzles ever. From the Escape Room movies to the unique TV plots of this or Brooklyn Nine-NineTV escape rooms tend to rely on a lot of outside knowledge in a way that real-life escape rooms only no🇧🇷

In the pilot episode, Jess and her friends are locked in two cells, complete with fake prison uniforms to complete the aesthetic. The room they are in has never been beaten, making Jess’ MacGyver’s ingenuity the key to their escape. Which, to be clear, involves taking a screwdriver hidden in a pipe and tying the sheets together to make a rope with the screwdriver on the end, all so they can swing to pull a lever to let them out. Amazing design; possibly a process waiting to happen, depending on how this balance turns out. Sure enough, a slew of angry Yelp reviews when the solution is revealed.

Photo: Brian Roedel/Disney

It’s extraordinarily crafted and, of course, almost exclusively there to demonstrate Jess’ skills and set the stage for her solving several hundred year old Masonic puzzles with ease. This is the reality that National Treasure: Edge of History Most Frequently Occupies: A puzzle lover’s dream of creating the perfect way to cut through the fitting mysteries that entice everyone around you. Add in the exploits of a Disney scavenger hunt and it’s pretty easy to see the appeal. Boundary of HistoryThe problem is that these puzzles often feel like they were built exclusively for Jess, and their knowledge base is almost reverse-engineered into this perfect adventure, making it less of a mystery you’re getting involved with and more of a rope of hope. trailer for a narrative.

Boundary of History it would be more fun if it always felt like that escape room: bizarrely byzantine and self-consciously silly, giving the audience some material to either laugh at or really engage with. Too often, the show is rooted against itself, trying to be more progressive without really recognizing what that means, either in the story or in the wider world. That’s a hard line to walk in the world of the National Treasury, with all its spring-loaded hidden drawers, coded messages and, yes, “I’m going to steal the Declaration of Independence” statements. Like fictional escape rooms they are (probably) a fabrication of history that needs to jump from riddle to riddle.

it is possible how Boundary of History continues, manages to land on a narrative that is more modern for its time and still achieves the fearless confidence of the historical treasure hunt genre. But in its early episodes, this is a puzzle that the Disney Plus sequel fails to solve.

National Treasure: Edge of Historythe first two episodes are now streaming on Disney Plus. New episodes air on Wednesdays.