Disappointing
Summary
Fountain of Youth should have been a slam dunk with the great cast, but they are let down by a lackluster script and a lack of imaginative set-pieces. It has some fun moments and there are worse ways to spend an evening, but I recommend watching The Mummy or Indiana Jones again instead.
Plot: Two estranged siblings partner on a global heist to find the mythological Fountain of Youth. They must use their knowledge of history to follow clues on an adventure that will change their lives and possibly lead to immortality.
Review: I love adventure movies and Indiana Jones is one of my all-time favourite movie characters. I’ve been wondering if someone was going to create a new adventure franchise as there hasn’t much in recent times. When I saw the trailers for Fountain of Youth I was intrigued as it had a great cast including John Krasinski, Natalie Portman and Stanley Tucci as well as being helmed by Guy Ritchie. The ingredients were all there for this to be a rollicking adventure tale, but sadly it never really comes together.
First of all, I felt like Krasinski was miscast as the adventurer Luke Purdue. It was like he was channeling Ryan Reynolds, and his character mostly came off as annoying. Natalie Portman plays his cynical sister who has forgotten how to have fun after going through a bitter divorce but begins to drop her guard and join in on their quest to find the mythical Fountain of Youth. I didn’t find her especially appealing either, but I did enjoy Eiza González as Esme. Stanley Tucci is literally just in on scene and is a glorified cameo which is a shame as he usually makes every movie better.
Fountain of Youth just feels so by the numbers like it wants to be Indiana Jones so bad that the finale is just a bit too similar to The Last Crusade. There are no amazing set-pieces that really stand out and the script was severely lacking. I was reading some reviews on Google and they surely must be bots or AI (same thing) saying that this had a great script. It doesn’t. At all. There are no memorable lines of dialogue and it’s the kind of film that will likely be forgotten about within a matter of weeks.
It’s not terrible; it has some decent fight scenes and a few shoot-outs as well as some tomb raiding towards the end. I think one of my main issues is that these kinds of movies work better when they are set in the past. There was a bigger sense of mystery to the world back in the 30’s and 40’s so setting it in the present day is just less interesting,
The music score is just incidental with no theme tune; I mean, come on! If you’re going to make an adventure movie it needs to have some sweeping memorable themes, but nope. Nothing.
Overall, Fountain of Youth was very disappointing as I was really looking forward to it. I enjoyed some elements but it just felt like it was copying Indiana Jones too much without any of the charm or appealing characters. It’s maybe worth a one-time watch for a family movie night, but this could have been so much better with all the talent involved.