Fountain of Youth (United States, 2025)

Here’s yet another original streaming “event” movie that rewards viewers for inattentiveness and distraction. The less attention one pays to this soulless retread of an action/adventure wannabe, the better it looks. With its A-list cast and crisp visual style (credit Guy Ritchie for that at least – not that he accomplishes much beyond it), the movie could be mistaken for a simple Raiders of the Lost Ark rip-off if one didn’t bother to look closely enough. But it only takes a few minutes of actually watching the production to reveal that calling it a rip-off is an insult to rip-offs. Fountain of Youth doesn’t have the energy or excitement to keep a viewer engrossed. Even the actors seem bored. This may not be the worst performance in Natalie Portman’s career but it’s certainly the one where she is most obviously interested in just picking up her (considerable) paycheck. Marlon Brando in Superman was more engaged.

I’m not going to say much about the story because this is the kind of narrative that writes itself. It’s a standard-order treasure hunt with The Da Vinci Code elements infused into the Raiders main plot. We follow a group of mostly mismatched “archeologists” – Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) and his reluctant sister, Charlotte (Natalie Portman); dying billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson); and Luke’s longtime cohorts Patrick (Laz Alonso) and Deb (Carmen Ejogo) – as they search for the legendary Fountain of Youth. Owen, who is afflicted with some unspecified terminal disease, has decided to spare no expense, believing it to be his long-shot chance for a cure. Luke is in it for fame and glory. Charlotte is in it because Luke has dragged her along (and it gives her an opportunity to show off some bad parenting skills). Meanwhile, a group of shadowy assassins tasked with protecting the secret of the Fountain are tailing our heroes. Led by the sexy-but-amoral Esme (Eiza Gonzalez), they employ a carrot-and-stick approach, with the stick being a bullet to the brain (or something similar). Also involved to varying degrees are an Interpol Inspector, Jamal Abbas (Arian Moayed), and a mysterious elder (Stanley Tucci, looking like he filmed this while on a break from Conclave).

Miscasting abounds but that’s what happens when you’re opting for recognizable “names” instead of actors who are right for the parts. Consider Luke, for example. When one thinks about someone with a swashbuckling personality, John Krasinski doesn’t spring to mind. Yet here he is, trying (and mostly failing) to impersonate Harrison Ford. Krasinski is many things but an action star isn’t among his strong suits. Portman’s performance makes her work for George Lucas seem subtle and adept. And, without the frothing at the mouth he provided for his own Star Wars work, Domhnall Gleeson is far too mellow to embody the necessary ambiguity of his character. Just about the only one who works is Eiza Gonzalez, although her role is nonsensical. Still, she engages in some amusing banter with Krasinski that makes us wish the two had abandoned digging around under the Egyptian pyramids and instead run off to play in a romantic comedy.

I no longer expect much from Guy Ritchie, whose long process of being defanged has turned him into a directorial gun-for-hire. This isn’t his worst work but it’s probably his most generic. Like everyone else, he’s in it for the paycheck. There’s not a single memorable moment in the interminable two hours of footage. The action scenes are boring. I doubt even a big-screen showing would have given them a pulse but, for home viewing, there’s an almost irresistible urge to fast-forward through each and every one of them. They are clutter. The problem is that the movie’s other elements aren’t sufficiently better.

The problems evident in Fountain of Youth are endemic to these would-be spectacles that go direct-to-streaming. That’s because no one has bothered to vet the most basic aspects of the production like, for example, telling a worthwhile story. These movies disappoint mostly because they are made for all the wrong reasons by studios with more money than understanding of what makes movies work. The problem isn’t unique to Apple; we see it with Netflix and Amazon as well. Fountain of Youth is a perfect example of something that can play in the background but proves singularly unable to hold anyone’s attention for the entirety of its running length.

Fountain of Youth (United States, 2025)