Fountain Of Youth quickly runs dry.
Take a hefty dose of The Da Vinci Code, a dash of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, a slice of Raise The Titanic and mix with a Guy Ritchie who seems to be phoning it in and you get somewhere close to Apple’s action-adventure misfire Fountain Of Youth, a film that really, really wants to be The Mummy (1999) but ends up being more like The Mummy (2017).
When her estranged brother Luke (John Krasinski), recently arrived from Thailand, turns up at her job at the National Gallery in London, Charlotte Purdue (Natalie Portman) swiftly finds herself unemployed and under suspicion after the theft – and baffling return – of a Rembrandt. Her brother, it turns out, is following in their father’s archaeological footsteps, piecing together clues to the location of the fabled fountain of youth at the behest – and on the dime – of dying billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson).
Fountain Of Youth begins at breakneck speed, in media res, as Luke makes his escape with a purloined portrait from the clutches of a Thai gangster but almost immediately it also becomes apparent that Guy Ritchie can’t seem to get the hang of an action chase sequence and not for the want of trying as the film will stage one after another after another in an attempt to provide a sense of momentum that’s utterly lacking from the plot.
The promising-on-paper casting never works. The Harrison Ford/ Brendan Fraser archetype should be firmly within Krasinski’s wheelhouse, but he’s clearly struggling to engage with the part, perhaps because it’s so thinly written that even his innate likeability and affable charisma can’t overcome the drag factors. Portman, on the other hand, just seems miserable but then again she hasn’t been lumbered with dialogue so clunky and basic since her prequel days. It’s not so much that there’s not a decent idea at the heart of Fountain Of Youth, it’s just that there’s too much going on and not enough of it is ever remotely interesting. There’s the billionaire-funded Purdue gang, the Thai mobsters, Interpol and the sexy and mysterious Guardians of the Path (dedicated to keeping the fountain hidden) and everyone’s after each other in some combination so every so often the film feels like a chaotic and overcrowded reunion.
From Thailand, to London, to the Atlantic Ocean and finally Egypt – via Austria – even the globetrotting feels rote – and something of a slog for both characters and audience. There’s a listlessness to everything except the fight scenes that rouse themselves just enough to qualify as perfunctory but Ritchie’s usual modus operandi of quick cuts and quicker quips seems at a loss to comprehend a world of under-explored pseudo-mythology and puzzle box McGuffinery. The resulting tonal indecisiveness manifests as an underlying inertia the relentless action sequences can’t quite cover up. It’s Ritchie’s worst work behind the camera since Swept Away, only this time he wastes talent in front of the camera too.
Not to say that everybody has just given up and is waiting for the wrap party to collect their cheque. Eiza González brings a sharp energy and a sharper wit to her role as Krasinski’s would-be nemesis and could-be love interest, while Arian Moayed’s Interpol Inspector Abbas swaggers around the movie like his agent told him he was the lead character. But The Boys‘ Laz Alonso and Fantastic Beasts‘ Carmen Ejogo are stuck in thankless background roles and even Stanley Tucci can’t get things back on track with his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo that teases a potential Fountain Of Youth / Conclave shared universe.
Based almost entirely on borrowed ideas, and failing to do anything worthwhile with the ideas it’s cobbled together, Fountain Of Youth can barely keep up with the interest payments let alone repay its debt to other, better films. Ritchie’s a great director when he’s on his own turf but he just doesn’t have the pulpy, crowd-pleasing instincts of a Spielberg or even a Sommers and coupled with a script that even Dan Brown would have to concede was lacking in any degree of cleverness or surprise the end result feels like an assembly cut of an adventure film composed entirely of studio executive notes.
