Fountain of Youth Review: Derivative Action-Adventure Film
Streaming Movie Review - Action/Adventure - Apple TV+
The Indiana Jones franchise popularized the action-adventure movie in the 1980s. The blend of stunts, humor, and a little conspiracy theory mixed with real history laid the template for many films to follow. Director Guy Ritchie and screenwriter James Vanderbilt seek to follow that formula with their new movie Fountain of Youth, now playing on Apple TV+.
Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) needs the help of his estranged sister, Charlotte (Natalie Portman), to uncover the path to the legendary Fountain of Youth. Along with ailing billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson), Luke has assembled a team to discover its location—the secret lies in a series of six paintings. The crew has found five, and only Charlotte can help them find where the sixth is. However, Charlotte wants to avoid the potential problems this adventure could cause for the sake of her son, Thomas (Benjamin Chivers).
As Charlotte sees the clues come together, her desire to see where they lead becomes too great, and she joins the team, bringing Thomas with her. They are not looking for the fountain alone, however. Esme (Eiza González) is one of the protectors of the fountain and is trying to thwart their plans. Following both groups is Inspector Jamal Abbas (Arian Moayed), trying to recover the stolen artifacts. As they get closer to their destination, everyone will have to determine who the villain is.
Fountain of Youth draws heavily from the Indiana Jones franchise with a bit of National Treasure sprinkled in. Unfortunately, it’s missing something of the charm and wit of those movies. Ritchie definitely brings moments of his style to the film that separate it from others in the genre, but the script feels a bit too derivative and bland to really make a statement. The film isn’t overlong by the standards of an action-adventure movie, but it still felt bloated.
This is an absolutely stacked cast, so it would seem that the cast would be able to bring some extra sparkle to the film, but it still feels flat. These certainly aren’t bad performances, but there was nothing in them to help latch onto the character in a way that made you care about them. That is probably more a fault of the script, but even so, there was nothing that any of the performances did to elevate the script.
Despite some of my complaints, the action scenes in Fountain of Youth are quite enjoyable. This is where Ritchie shines, and they are the most engaging element of the movie. There is a fight in a library that incorporates some great camera angles and unique choices that make it a lot of fun to watch. Most of the mysteries are interesting, and the way they solve them is a good time, though there was one that stretched credulity a little too far for this critic, who is also a musician.
Overall, Fountain of Youth is a relatively entertaining, if a bit bland, piece of filmmaking. You may just want to bring your own water to drink.
Rating: 3/5
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on May 24, 2025.
I thought it was fun to watch as a casual family movie. Agree with you the action scenes are pretty well filmed but the script felt like it was written by ChatGPT sometimes 😂.