CNN
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Giving the “Nationwide Treasure” motion pictures a young-adult spin, “Nationwide Treasure: Fringe of Historical past” transforms the franchise right into a Disney+ collection, one that provides the identical playful method to the previous whereas weighing that down with tiresome relationship points and a protagonist along with her personal Scooby gang. The opening episodes have their moments, but it surely’s much less one thing to treasure than at finest mildly get pleasure from.
Nicolas Cage starred within the 2004 film and its sequel, a type of low cost “Raiders of the Misplaced Ark.” The baton right here passes to Lisette Olivera as Jess, a whip-smart Dreamer whose father, a protector of treasures, disappeared when she was a child.
“Don’t you dare develop as much as be like your papi,” her mother warns the toddler, however in fact she does when she’s reintroduced twenty years later, stumbling upon an elaborate thriller with slightly assist from a retired FBI agent (performed by Harvey Keitel, one of many conspicuous ties to the sooner motion pictures).
Jess’ knack for figuring out clues (she and her buddies are launched taking part in an escape-room sport) turns out to be useful in these real-life situations, with Catherine Zeta-Jones chewing up much more surroundings than she devours in “Wednesday” because the evil antiquities supplier who’s sizzling on her tail.
Whereas it’s simple sufficient to love a collection that dispatches the hero to Graceland in search of a historic tidbit which may contain Elvis Presley, “Fringe of Historical past” resides on the sting of tedium within the interactions between Jess and her nerdy associates, with the primary exception being her pal Tasha (Zuri Reed), who really supplies plucky comedian reduction beneath these hard-to-fathom circumstances.
Cormac and Marianne Wibberley, who labored on the scripts for the unique motion pictures, developed this iteration of the idea, they usually deserve some credit score for basically grafting this CW/Freeform-style variation onto the unique, whereas together with not solely Keitel however an look by Justin Bartha, who co-starred, as useful holdovers.
Because the latest “Willow” reminds us, Disney has aggressively mined its film library for titles which may lend themselves to streaming-series remedy, and “Nationwide Treasure,” with its episodic side as Jess should find and crack new clues, maybe works on that degree higher than most.
But whereas Olivera makes an interesting lead, the too-familiar romantic wrinkles and hormonal entanglements show to be extra of a distraction than an enhancement, abandoning a collection that resembles its papi simply sufficient to be sporadically enjoyable, however one which makes the journey to the place X marks the spot really feel that for much longer.
“Nationwide Treasure: Fringe of Historical past” premieres December 14 on Disney+.