Fountain of Youth
Guy Ritchie's family action-adventure flick is familiar, fun and forgettable.
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Over the past six years Guy Ritchie’s been an awfully busy boy. Since 2019 he’s dropped seven features and two television series. Ritchie’s latest is “Fountain of Youth” (streaming on Apple TV+ beginning Friday, May 23) and while it’s my least favorite of his recent output it’s still an entertaining-enough, family-focused piece of action-adventure filmmaking.
Siblings Luke (John Krasinski) and Charlotte Purdue (Natalie Portman) are estranged after the passing of their archeologist father.
Luke’s gotten himself in a good bit of trouble working for ailing billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson) searching for clues that will lead them to the restorative waters of the titular Fountain of Youth. So much so that he’s being actively pursued by shadowy government operative Esme (Eiza González) and London-based Inspector Jamal Abbas (Arian Moayed). Aiding Luke in his pursuits are his late father’s colleagues Patrick Murphy (Laz Alonso) and Deb McCall (Carmen Ejogo).
Charlotte’s currently in the midst of a divorce to Harold (Daniel De Bourg) and they’re having a bitter custody battle over their musical prodigy son Thomas (Benjamin Chivers). Adding insult to injury she’s canned from her museum curation job when Luke ensnares her in one of his schemes. It’s come to a point where Charlotte has no choice but to take Thomas and join Luke and his team on their quest.
“Fountain of Youth” as helmed by Ritchie and penned by James Vanderbilt (scripter of Netflix’s “Murder Mystery” franchise to which this has a similar vibe) is a light and breezy globe-trotting adventure that takes audiences to Thailand, England, Austria and Egypt. The picture is handsomely shot by Ritchie’s recent cinematographer Ed Wild (they teamed for “The Covenant” and “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”), but it’s arguably too slick. The film is familiar yet fun, but ultimately entirely forgettable.
Despite being over two hours long, none of our characters are especially well developed. Krasinski’s Luke fares best of all with his roguish charm. His chemistry with González’s Esme lends the proceedings an entertaining will they or won’t they energy between hunted and hunter, but I wish it were better developed and paid off more explicitly. Portman’s Charlotte is a bit of a stick in the mud – she could’ve and should’ve been given more and better notes to play. By narrative necessity Gleeson’s Carver is a cipher, but it’s a kick to see him cut loose alongside Chivers’ Thomas. Krasinski’s brother-in-law Stanley Tucci turns up for a blink and you’ll miss it scene with González as her character’s handler … I’m assuming this was done as a favor and I could’ve gone for more of him.
“Fountain of Youth” is more “National Treasure” than national treasure. Qualitatively speaking this ark remains unraided.