Guy Ritchie continues his breathless directorial churn with Fountain of Youth (now streaming on Apple TV+), an action-mystery-comedy starring John Krasinski and Natalie Portman as bickering, treasure-hunting siblings. It’s a departure of sorts for the filmmaker, who’s spent the better portion of the last decade cranking out Memorable Mug Movies, or MMMs if you’re into the whole brevity thing – specifically, twisty spy and/or heist movies that are memorable more for their prominent mugs (belonging to the likes of Henry Cavill, Jason Statham, Charlie Hunnam, etc.) than their interchangeable generiplots. This one is an Indiana Jones derivative from scripter James Vanderbilt (whose writing credits include Zodiac, two The Amazing Spider-Mans and, um, two Murder Mysterys) that takes a hearty shot at being diverting entertainment, and leaves us with the lingering feeling that it belongs in a theater when it’s hot out, luring us with the promise of popcorn and air conditioning, not lost on Apple TV+. So it goes?
The Gist: Luke Purdue (Krasinski) is… well, movie characters named Luke Purdue can only be one thing: an art thief who steals art not because it’s valuable but because it hides clues to the location of ancient legends, and who’s also inspired by his father who was a great archaeologist. I’m pretty sure we can read all that into those three “u”s, all pronounced “ooh”: Loohk Poohrdoohe. It’s so obvious! Anyway. Luke Purdue is on a moped zooming through Bangkok and getting shot at because he snatched the famous El Greco painting Christ Carrying the Cross, which is rolled up in a leather poster tube strapped to his back. He gets away and boards a train and manages to get away from Esme (Eiza Gonzalez), who also wants the painting. I think she’s an actual art thief who wants to thieve some art because it’s worth giant piles of money. She also seems to be Luke’s rival? And potential love interest? There’s a smidge of tension there, although I wasn’t quite convinced. Fun opening sequence, though! Very action-packed, very quippy.
Luke’s next stop: the art museum where his sister Charlotte Purdue (Portman) is a curator. I think they’re sort of estranged since he’s a crook and she’s on the straight-and-narrow these days. They used to have great adventures with their dad the archaeologist. And I know all this because they say things like “The three of us had such great adventures,” and reply by saying things like “Yeah, that was 10 years ago.” We learn that Charlotte is going through a divorce and may face a custody battle for her son Thomas (Benjamin Chivers) if she can’t stay outta trouble. And right on cue, Luke steals a Rembrandt right in front of Charlotte, then steals Charlotte herself, and they tear ass through London in his vintage Shelby Cobra before returning to his secret hideout with his partners (Laz Alonzo and Carmen Ejogo) and blurting out, “We’re looking for the Fountain of Youth!” See, it’s not the art they’re after, but the secret messages hiding on the backs of very famous, very valuable paintings, which, when Da Vinci decoded, will tell ’em where to find the mythical waters that, legend has it, will restore the youth of anyone who drinks or bathes in them.
And so Charlotte gets fired and is strong-armed into helping her brother find the Fountain. Who, you might ask, is bankrolling this project? Owen Carver (Domnhall Gleeson), a dying billionaire who wants to see if the Fountain can heal him – and who apparently has so much clout, he can throw wanted and/or suspected international felons into his private plane and fly them anywhere in the world with barely a moment’s notice. They end up in, per the title cards, Ireland and Vienna and Cairo, Egypt (as opposed to Cairo, Kentucky, I guess? It’s definitely the Cairo with the pyramids), tracking down clues and being chased not only by Esme and her goons, but also Interpol guy Jamal (Arian Moayed). Young Thomas ends up tagging along with his mom and uncle, and boy howdy, it’s a good thing he’s a musical prodigy, or else they might not solve various puzzles and riddles that stand between them and glory. This is all rather silly and entertaining to this point, but can Fountain of Youth stick the landing? Ehh. I’m not so sure about that.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Fountain of Youth is pretty much Guy Ritchie’s Indianer Jonze and the National Da Vinci Treasure Code.
Performance Worth Watching: Krasinski wields his smirky charm, Portman brings a dollop of gravitas (note: a tablespoon would’ve been too much), and they bounce off each other with enough chemistry to juice up a fairly rote, ridiculous movie.
Memorable Dialogue: Sample banter, from the scene in which Luke shows Charlotte the El Greco:
Luke: Found it in Thailand.
Charlotte: Jesus!
Luke: Carrying the cross!
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: I cannot for the life of me determine why the various inhabitants of this movie are fine with letting thousands of bullets fly in rooms full of priceless art, ancient sub-sub-chambers that haven’t been seen since the Egyptians built them millennia ago, or within spitting distance of the Pyramids of Giza (which thankfully get better treatment here than in that one Transformers movie). I guess you can just have AI replace a Rembrandt after it’s riddled with holes? Such moments rattled my suspension of disbelief even more than the pursuers’ magical ability to find the protagonists wherever they jet off to, or all the supernatural shit at the end of the movie that’s rendered with junk CGI – a climax that had me worried that Fountain of Youth might Crystal Skull itself to death.
And boy, does it come close. This might be the most slickly directed junkheap of a movie in recent memory (and yet another example of Ritchie being a hired gun, and leaning further away from auteur status). But I think I got over it? Fountain’s entertainment value is high, being chock full of zippy action sequences and snappy banter delivered by reasonably engaged leads. At more than two hours, its snappy pace eventually flags under the weight of its sloppo-plotto’s excess baggage – the Gonzalez character is expendable, Luke finds himself in a few go-nowhere dream sequences and Stanley “The Tooch” Tucci turns up for a single forgettable scene. But Ritchie keeps the plane in the air despite a few close scrapes, and trots out enough clever, show-offy camera maneuvers to keep us alert and chuckling.
Not that Fountain of Youth seeks to be more than light, moderately violent escapist nonsense. It’s the movie equivalent of bologna and Velveeta on Wonder bread – zero nutritional value, but it tastes pretty good. And it’s actually “about” something, namely, that life is about the adventure, not the treasure, a half-assed reiteration of the it’s-the-journey-not-the-destination cliche that’s repeated in the dialogue at least six, maybe seven dozen times, just to make sure we Get It, along with Charlotte, who’s lost her daredevil spirit ever since she decided to get married, have a child and cease committing crimes like a total lame-o. One could maybe read some troublesome gender dynamics into that arc, but my brain struggles to make such connections when I’m chewing, and this is very much a shovel-in-handfuls-of-popcorn type of movie that excels at urging you to ignore its glaring flaws.
Our Call: There’s a good chance that Fountain of Youth made me stupider, but I really don’t feel like thinking about that right now, so STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.