Review: 'Fountain of Youth'
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before
It’s Friday evening, and you’re ready for a movie. Maybe it’s a kind of tradition? You need something entertaining to start the weekend. Something not too heavy but full of action, adventure, and cheesy one-liners.
You’ve got your popcorn and other snacks ready. This will be fun. Bring on the globetrotting adventure, mustache-twirling baddies, and ancient mysteries. But as the film starts, you begin to ask yourself: Did I already watch this?
Guy Ritchie’s new globetrotting adventure romp for Apple TV+ certainly gave me that exact feeling. With a strong cast consisting of John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Domhnall Gleeson, Eiza González, Laz Alonso, Carmen Ejogo, Benjamin Chivers, and Stanley Tucci—who appears in a short scene in the Vatican (quick, someone check if this was shot at the same time as Conclave… maybe Tucci was on his lunch break?)—it tells a very familiar story, full of tropes from other adventure franchises.
I certainly hope that director Guy Ritchie and writer James Vanderbilt intended this as a homage to the adventure genre. The story is so unoriginal, predictable, and painfully obvious that I almost regretted not having a bottle of something stronger while watching it. It could be a fun drinking game: a blatant ripoff from Indiana Jones, National Treasure, The Mummy, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, or Dan Brown’s novels? Drink!
Meet the English adventurer and art thief Luke Purdue (Krasinski). Always in some kind of trouble, moving from place to place, searching for mysteries, fortune, and glory. His newest adventure, backed by young billionaire Owen Carver (Gleeson)—who is dying from liver cancer—is to find the Fountain of Youth, which, according to legend, could save his life.
With the money in place, Luke’s team, consisting of tough guy Patrick Murphy (Alonso) and Deb McCall (Ejogo), begins investigating clues hidden around the world that point toward the mythical Fountain, guarded by ancient mysteries and traps.
The path to the Fountain is hidden in classical art, with paintings by the old masters secretly pointing the way for the worthy. Because, of course, it is. As we meet Luke and his team, they’ve secured most of the paintings—except one.
Enter Luke’s younger and estranged sister, Charlotte (Portman), who has left her old life of adventure behind to raise a family. Her son, the musical prodigy Thomas (Chivers), comes along for the ride, where his skills become useful in solving some of the film’s mysteries. Because… of course he is.
Opposing the team is a secret, Vatican-based brotherhood of mystical guardians who will stop at nothing to ensure the Fountain of Youth remains hidden from the greed of mankind. They’re led by the enigmatic Esme (González), who chases Luke’s crew around the globe and will do whatever it takes to protect secrets best left buried. Because… you get the idea.
But being an international art thief tends to earn you enemies—and Luke has many. True to genre form, Interpol is after him, led by Inspector Jamal Abbas (Arian Moayed). He and his squad of gun-toting agents are always one step behind, usually arriving after Luke’s latest escapade, bumping into everyone else who’s also chasing the elusive thief and his crew.
Fountain of Youth isn’t just loosely inspired by better adventure films. Whole scenes seem lifted directly from those screenplays—just with different names and, for the most part, different scenery. We hit all the usual exotic haunts: Bangkok, London, Vienna, Egypt.
There are some excellent set pieces along the way, often on a grand scale. Standouts (no spoilers here) include the raising of a massive shipwreck and a descent into ancient ruins. The film is packed with secrets and conspiracies. While the action is enjoyable, it’s surprisingly violent compared to the otherwise light tone.
And here is my main issue with Fountain of Youth. It’s not the blatant borrowing—or even outright ripoffs—from other adventure films that made me wonder if screenwriter Vanderbilt was a little too eager to let ChatGPT stitch together a composite screenplay from parts of better adventure movies. No, it’s the uneven tone.
Looking at the key art for the film, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a family movie — and in many ways, it is. Benjamin Chivers, who plays young musical prodigy Thomas, certainly adds to that impression. He tags along on the globetrotting adventure, solving riddles, running from bad guys, and getting into trouble with the rest of the gang.
John Krasinski’s upbeat, light-hearted performance as Luke, as well as the film’s clean, almost synthetic look, reinforces this tone with his constant optimism and playful bickering with his sister.
Then, in the very next scene, people are gunned down, stabbed, and killed in all sorts of ways. It’s a strange juxtaposition of tones, and the film suffers for it—never quite finding solid footing.
Still, suppose you can look past the imitation, ripoffs, and creative deficiencies that plague Fountain of Youth. In that case, you will find that it has its charms. The cast is strong, even though some of them seem to be phoning it in during many of the scenes.
The chemistry between Krasinski and Portman as two formerly estranged siblings, now thrown together on a globetrotting adventure, might not be 100% convincing, but it’s fun. We all know that both are great actors capable of so much more, which is just indicative of this being some kind of post-pandemic paycheck for them.
The same could be said for the other cast members, and I can hardly believe that any of them finished their work on this title thinking it would be anything but filler in their IMDb profiles. Still, they all add to the scenes they have together, some more than others.
Eiza González, who I mostly remember from the fantastic 3 Body Problem and the hilarious The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, is good but generic as the hero’s foil from the secret brotherhood of the guardians of the whatever-it-was.
Same goes for Domhnall Gleeson, who we know can do a lot with his acting talent, having starred in everything from the brain-twisting Ex Machina to massive mainstream franchises such as Star Wars and Harry Potter.
But how no one noticed — or didn’t care — that the screenplay for Fountain of Youth borrowed, imitated, and stole plot points from every other film in the genre — without adding anything original — is a real headscratcher. Who greenlit this? I won’t get into spoilers, but if anyone watches this movie and wants to talk about it, I’ll be here.
The Fountain of Youth premiers on Apple TV+ on May 23, 2025.
Your opening line was spot on. Friday night, needing a late film to watch, with a cold beer and my feet up. I watched 45 minutes. Gave up and won’t go back to finish it. No point wondering how it will turn out for them all - I don’t care.
I'm going to have to stop reading your reviews, Eirik, as you're pouring cold water on all the popcorn movies/series of which I'd thought 'Oh, I quite like the idea of that'!
But in truth you're absolutely right. There is so much stuff designed, right up to the trailer, to get people thinking just that. It's 'If you liked X, then you'll like Y' film-making by algorithm.
I love me a good archaeology/artefact/treasure map yarn, having been brought up on Indiana Jones. I enjoyed Dial of Destiny and Uncharted and am even in the vanishingly small segment of the world's population to be a fan of Sahara.
But there is a limit to the amount of rehashing a trope can take, especially if, as you suggest, there is no new angle added.
In fact, is it even possible at this stage to add a new angle?
Funnily enough, Benji Chivers' dad turns out to be a friend of a friend, and just posted on Facebook about heading off to the première, and how excited he was. I hope for the kid's sake he has a great time, and the film's a success (also for all others involved in the legwork of making it, though perhaps not the greenlighting producers). But you do have to wonder whether the 'potential franchise' he talks about is really what cinema needs right now.