"Fountain of Youth" 4K Review

 In my review of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare I recapped Guy Ritchie's wildly inconsistent and of late dull cinematic output, so I shant recapitulate it here, but suffice to say he's continuing his streak of bland, tonally incorrect content creation with his direct-to-Apple TV+ effort for Memorial Day, Fountain of Youth, which fancies itself as a globe-trotting version of National Treasure. (International Treasure?)

John Krasinski (The Office) stars as Luke Purdue, whom we meet in an extended chase scene through Bangkok, Thailand, as he is pursued by various forces intent on recovering a painting he's stolen from their boss. While on a train, he encounters a Esme (Eiza González, last seen in Ash), whom he seems to have a history with (which is never really explained), who also wants the painting back. He manages to give everyone the slip.

His next stop is at a London museum where he surprises his sister, Charlotte (Natalie Portman, Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace), a curator who is somewhat estranged from him. Their father was an archeologist and the siblings used to go along on his adventures, but she settled down into an unhappy failing marriage with a precious musical prodigy child, Thomas (Benjamin Chivers), who turns out to be so magical that I was surprised they didn't make him autistic. In order to get her on board with his LAteST crusade (hint hint) he steals a painting from the museum and gets her fired. 

Luke then clues her into what's going on: He's looking for the Fountain of Youth (roll credits! *ding*), which their father had sought as well, and he's being funded by billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson, Star Wars: Episodes VII-IX), who is terminally ill and hopes to save his life with the healing waters. While a secret society called the Protectors of the Path (was Knights Templar not available?), of which Esme is a member, was dedicated to keeping the Fountain hidden, a group who disagreed with that mission hid clues in a half-dozen master artists' works to indicate where it is. (Spoiler: Under the Great Pyramid of Giza.)

The painting turns out to be a fake, but Charlotte knows where the real one should be. Unfortunately, that would be in a safe in the Lusitania, sunk by the Germans in 1915. Fortunately, Carver is super rich and the ship laid in *only* 300 feet of water a dozen miles off the coast of Ireland, so they're able to send robots down to saw free the part of the ship the safe was located and float it to the surface to be looted. Unfortunately, Esme shows up with armed goons to take the painting. Fortunately, the siblings escape with their lives and the painting.

Further complicating matters is an Interpol inspector, Abbas (Arian Moayed, Succession), who is also chasing them because stealing art is a crime, mmmkay? The race to find the Fountain or prevent it takes them to Vienna, then Cairo, with various red shirts getting killed culminating in the final act taking place in Egypt at the Pyramids where the filmmakers made damn sure that it's blindingly obvious they copied every beat of the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and if you've seen that, you'll be able to predict pretty much everything that happens and why. And yes, the kid is the smartest of them all.

 As with The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Ritchie simply cannot manage the tonal balance here. On one hand it's played as a light comic romp, but on the other there are red shirts being killed and la de da, it's all so fun. Pick a lane, bro. Is finding the Fountain of Youth serious business or just a trifle-slash-sibling bonding exercise?

Another problem is Krasinsk's performance. He's a fine actor (and should've been Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four: First Steps), but Ritchie has him playing every scene as if it's a light comedy and he doesn't have a trace if Indiana Jones bravado or the underlying compulsion to follow in their father's adventuring footsteps. Portman doesn't fare much better, though she got the one laugh out of me with a funny line reading.

The ending clearly tries to set up sequels, but I'm not sure how much money Apple wants to burn producing slick, globe-trotting adventure movies that clearly aren't cheap to make (reported budget: $180M) then don't generate a dollar of box office revenue - unlike other forays such as Ridley Scott's Napoleon or the upcoming Brad Pitt-starring F1 which received big theatrical releases - especially when they're not that good.

While not offensively bad, Fountain of Youth isn't particularly good, which makes it all-too-typical for Hollyweird entertainment content product these days. You won't hate yourself for watching it that much, but you probably won't feel any positive emotions either. It's just another "may as well watch since I'm paying for the service" movies.

Score: 5/10. Catch it on Apple TV+.