‘Fountain of Youth’ Review: John Krasinski & Natalie Portman Lead Guy Ritchie’s Soulless Globetrotting Adventure

Globetrotting adventure films have been around for decades and have spawned some of the greatest movie franchises we have — Indiana Jones, James Bond, John Wick, and, of course, Mission: Impossible. So much so that we keep going back to drink from those IP fountains time and time again. And thus, Guy Ritchie‘s Fountain of Youth exists. A continent-spanning expedition-based movie that, well, tries to do what the rest of them do. Just not nearly as good.

Luke Purdue, played by John Krasinski, is bent on finding the Fountain of Youth — an object of fable that may or may not be real — for a prosperous corporate raider by the name of Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson), who is slowly expiring due to terminal liver cancer. Luke’s ragtag team of artifact hunters, Patrick and Deb (performances by Laz Alonso and Carmen Ejogo, respectively, that are completely wasted during the runtime of just over two hours), are already well on their way to finding hidden clues in six famous paintings when they are joined by Luke’s sister, Charlotte (Natalie Portman).

Typical Genre Highlights Aren’t Enough To Boost Apple TV+’s ‘Fountain of Youth’

With brother and sister united, the opportunity for a thematically resonant “let’s continue dad’s legacy of hunting some of the most treasured artifacts ever told and rekindle our familial bond” is right there. And so many times throughout the movie, it’s still right there. But never within grasp. Even if it’s incredibly derivative of those that came well before it, Fountain of Youth does little to carve out its own narrative path and grab onto the thematic meat that so many other entries of this genre manage to seize by the handful. Charlotte (who is joined partway through this expedition by the musical-prodigy son she is battling for custody over) does act as a necessary, albeit unworthy, counter to Krasinski’s brazen and lackluster performance as Luke.

London, Egypt, and a handful of other countries visited make for an inherently fun adventure, but realistically, they do little more than meet the baseline expectations for what Fountain of Youth aims to deliver. From country to country, it comes as no surprise that Luke and co. are being tailed by Interpol, who are investigating Luke’s string of art heists, and not one, but two other third-party groups who have a vested interest in… what? It’s a bit unclear. One of the groups wants the art that Luke has stolen in Thailand. The other, led by Eiza González, wants the art, the artifacts, and the whole kit and caboodle — including a bit of Luke himself.

As the search for the Fountain of Youth leads to one dead end after another, the film offers a handful of moderately entertaining fight scenes — most notably a brawl between Krasinski and Gonzalez in the Austrian National Library — that help momentarily lift it from stretches of lifeless dialogue. The excessive dependence on these set pieces does flash a warning sign to the shallow thematic endeavor that, again, feels like Fountain of Youth was on the precipice of tasting until it realized it didn’t want to swim in the deep end of that pool.

‘Fountain of Youth’ Fizzles From the Start

However, perhaps what is most confounding is the film’s seemingly meandering attitude to who this movie is even made for. Is it a family adventure flick that inspires young children to trust their problem-solving abilities regardless of what the world hands them? Or is it a more adult-skewed traversing tale full of sexual chemistry between the lead and the woman chasing him? I’m still not sure. And the movie doesn’t know either. This is easily one of its biggest flaws; a project trying to be made for everyone that ends up being made, ultimately, for no one.

Fountain of Youth had the potential to be a solid entry into the world-toting adventure movie category, but squandered it all on narrative plainness and ambiguity, an over-reliance on CGI for the finale, and dialogue built for “second-screening.” Even the capital A actors that have proven, as recently as just two years ago, that they are Academy Award-level material (Portman’s participation in the Oscar-nominated May December is the type of project she can ace), are delivering just enough for a large Apple-sized paycheck. All around, it’s an unfortunate outing of a film that rewards minimal engagement and maximum levels of “it’s on streaming, so it is what it is” energy. To which I say, we can, and should, be doing better.

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