Fountain of Youth review: Guy Ritchie's most generic film yet proves he's overdue a break

Fountain of Youth is Apple TV+'s latest attempt at a must-watch blockbuster for home viewing that was brimming with potential but fails to capture the magic of the classic adventures it's shamelessly aping.

Iconic British filmmaker Guy Ritchie has been on a roll of late, jumping between cranking out his signature crime-comedy capers to both producing and directing an ever-growing list of prestige streaming series.

From The Gentlemen and MobLand to last year's The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, they've been varying degrees of success and quality but still appointment viewing for the Guinness-drinking, flat cap-wearing Peaky Blinders crowd.

Especially when he's been taking on double duties as a screenwriter, Ritchie has proved he hasn't lost his cheeky chappy, occasionally boundary-pushing sense of wit and style.

However, his latest venture, penned this time by James Vanderbilt, takes the director out of his comfort zone to something closer to his forays into fantasy with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Disney's Aladdin remake from the late 2010s.

Starring John Krasinski and Natalie Portman as sibling explorers Luke and Charlotte Purdue, Fountain of Youth kicks off when the former wrangles his reluctant sister along for an expedition to recapture their heyday in search of the eponymous legendary spring of life.

Along for the ride is their wealthy benefactor Owen Carver (played by Domhnall Gleeson), techie Deb McCall (Carmen Ejogo) and muscle/driver Patrick Murphy (Laz Alonso).

Sadly, the promise of a rip-roaring, globe-trotting mystery in the tradition of Indiana Jones or The Mummy is squandered by a generic script that turns the expedition into an uninspired slog with characters you'll be glad to see the back of.

It has all the expected hallmarks of those period adventure films with the life and romance sucked out of it, instead set in the dingy present complete with superfluous sports cars, momentum-killing FaceTimes and PowerPoint presentations.

Though there are some high points - usually when Ritchie actually gets creative with the camera and choreography for the few and far between action sequences - Fountain of Youth starts bad and gets worse.

Museum curator Charlotte, mentally bruised from a fresh divorce and ongoing custody battle, gets to play second fiddle as the "kid sister" to Krasinski's condescending older brother Luke, despite Portman being just two years her co-star's junior and having an undeniable air of authority after literal decades longer as an A-list talent.

She's guided, tricked and manhandled throughout the first portion of the adventure, while Krasinski gets to employ the skills he learned at the Ryan Reynolds school of charm with the film's sort-of-antagonist Esme (Eiza González). Still the most charismatic member of the ensemble - and the most combat savvy - her flirty fights with Krasinski do little more than derail the adventure and downplay the threat she poses to the team without anything close to the level of chemistry needed to get away with it.

It's certainly not all bad. There's a refreshing reliance on (mostly) practical sets and locations that sets it apart from other washed-out, uncanny feeling streaming pap that feels shot on a soundstage with different actors showing up on different days.

As mentioned, González especially throws herself into the combat, with a briefly inventive knife fight in a library coming dangerously close to fun but, in a runtime that exceeds two full hours, it's not nearly enough to invigorate a film that's primarily concerned with a group of characters standing around looking for clues and discussing ancient history.

Despite being announced back in 2023, the script still feels like a first draft populated by archetypes and placeholder quips. Portman mumbles "awkward" after accidentally offending someone, Krasinski shouts "Yahtzee!" when he finds a clue, and most of the other characters are pushed to the side to make way either for Luke's bickering with Charlotte or lacklustre smouldering with Esme.

When the obligatory tomb-raiding, puzzle-solving scenes do arrive, they feel dingy and pedestrian, and there's a baffling attempt to expand the lore of the titular fountain with a walk-on cameo from Stanley Tucci as the head of an organisation seemingly formed solely to stop the adventurers from having fun.

There's nothing here that's fresh enough to keep you invested or excited to see these characters again. None of Indy's jaw-dropping Biblical mysticism or Nazi-punching, none of The Mummy's charm or madcap comedic energy, not even a barmy Nicolas Cage stealing the Declaration of Independence.

Instead, we have a script even ChatGPT would call derivative, twists you'll see coming before the film's even started and a head-scratching third act that feels straight out of a ropey SyFy series. Both Ritchie and Apple can do much better than this.

Fountain of Youth premieres Friday, 23rd May on Apple TV+.