Fountain Of Youth (2025) Review
Fountain of Youth (2025)
Guy Ritchie is no stranger to the magical Macguffin in his movies. In fact, you could arguably say they laid the foundation for his film making career, with Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch both centering around groups of disparate individuals chasing after that one something that will inevitably lead to fortune, fame and the big one, power. In his latest caper, we’ve swapped hard cash for magic water as our heroes hunt for the fountain of youth, and Guy Ritchie another big blockbuster hit.
After tracking down and investigating some paintings that could lead to the fountain of youth, ardent adventurer Luke Purdue enlists the help of his estranged younger sister to track down the final pieces of the puzzle. The two quickly begin bickering as the motives behind the expedition begin to reveal themselves and the reason for their distance from one another comes to the fore.
The trick to a good adventure film is that it has to be fun. Despite our heroes being chased by boulders, hung from planes or even fighting off the undead, the main thing that sets a good film apart from a bad film is whether you can leave the cinema with a smile on your face. While The Fountain of Youth has all the right moving parts, it’s lacking the light hearted soul that keeps the machine running.
Much of this comes down to the writing. The plot is completely paint by number, from the opening set piece to the closing frame; Open with the first clue, action sequence. Off to find the second clue, action sequence. Connect the pieces and venture out for the final clue, action sequence. It helps that the connective tissue is intriguing - think The Da Vinci code but with far less thought gone into it - but it all just feels a little like we’ve seen it before and in many cases, with more vigour than we get in the hands of Ritchie.
The same thing can unfortunately be said for our main characters. With barely an arc to be seen, except through some very tenuous flashback sequences, not much is left for us to truly get behind the protagonists and more importantly, empathise with anything happening on screen. He tries his best, but in John Krasinski’s case it's either a case of the wrong leading man, or just not enough to play with. I would be tempted to say the latter but there’s something off about Krasinski in this role. Not that he is particularly wrong for the part, but something is just missing that results in a loveable rogue who’s neither lovable nor roguish. It’s a shame as you can see Krasinski being able to pull this off given the right material, but here is just a little flat and lacking in ways that the likes of Harrison Ford, or even Brendan Fraser have managed to nail in the past.
With the final chunk of the film taking place in Egypt, it's hard not to think about the 2005 stinker, Sahara. Although this definitely doesn’t have the same issues as that, it also doesn’t have Matthew McConaughey and Steve Zahn. The fact that I’m bringing up Sahara instead of Indiana Jones while talking about Fountain of Youth says it all.
The Fountain of Youth jumps onto AppleTV+ this weekend!
