Review: 'Fountain of Youth' is Basically 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Dumb'

Take the best parts of the Indiana Jones and the National Treasure movies and add in the few actually enjoyable bits from Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code series. Then throw all that away. That’s the Arnold Schwarzenegger in Twins, and this movie is the “all the crap that was left over” DeVito. That’s not to say that Guy Ritchie’s Fountain of Youth is necessarily bad, because it’s not. It is decisively mediocre, feeling exactly as recycled as that introduction suggests.

The film smartly drops us right into action, as archeologist-turned-art thief Luke (John Krasinski) is mid-heist in Thailand. He gets away with it, of course, and immediately turns to another heist, this time from the museum where his somewhat estranged sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) works. Why is he stealing art? Turns out their father was a treasure-hunting archeologist, and Luke is somewhat following in his footsteps to help billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson) find the legendary Fountain of Youth to help stave off his cancer. Globetrotting ensues, while they are chased by Inspector Abbas (a criminally underused Arian Moayed) and Interpol, as well as by Esme (Eiza González) and others of the Templar-like “Protectors.” But again, none of this matters. The plot beats are mostly stupid and predictable, but at least they are also uninteresting. The fact that this comes from the same man (James Vanderbilt) who also wrote Zodiac and the recent Scream sequels is … confusing.

And yet, as I said, the movie isn’t really bad, despite a bone dumb script. And that is primarily thanks to Ritchie. The man can still film engaging, entertaining action. All of the set pieces move along without overstaying their welcome. In a few instances, despite how busy Ritchie’s been of late, he somehow still manages to pull a few fun camera tricks out of his sleeve. He also knows how to get the most from his cast, and remains able to coax performances that blend action and charm.

I know a lot of folks are more-or-less done with Krasinski these days, particularly in his Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan mode, and I get it. But here, Richie has him showing at least some of the charm that made him so beloved on The Office, and it mostly works. While it takes Portman a while to unshackle the wet blanket her character is burdened with, she also gets a few opportunities to throw her charm around, and she’s still one of the best at it. The rest of the cast are all good-to-fine, but apparently Vanderbilt and Richie used up most of the “have fun” with their leads (except for Moayed, who can’t help but ooze charm even in this thankless role).

Speaking of the leads. So look. There are a lot of weird and awkward bits to this film. But at the top of the list surely has to be the dynamic between Krasinski’s Luke and Portman’s Charlotte because there’s a weird flirtation in the air in many of their scenes. It’s not weird because there is also some flirtation between Luke and González’s Esme. It’s weird because you may have forgotten what I said in the intro, which is that they’re siblings. And not “hey, step-brother, can you help me with this?” siblings, but full-blooded kin playing notes of “will they, won’t they, of course they will.” I wanted to spend time in this review talking about the preposterous plot contrivance of Charlotte’s musical-prodigy son, or the abomination of a finale at the Fountain of Youth (oh, spoilers, I guess, that they find it?), or the complete waste of Krasinski’s real-life brother-in-law Stanley Tucci as the head of the Protectors. But my brain just keeps coming back to this.

In fact, Fountain of Youth clearly contemplates a sequel. It does not really earn or deserve a sequel, so I wouldn’t hold my breath (although I would still probably watch it on another Saturday night from my couch). But if there is a sequel, the smartest thing it could do right out of the gate is reveal that Luke and Charlotte aren’t siblings so they can get after it. Stupid? Sure. But if I learned anything from this movie, it’s to follow the clues. And the clues are that these two want to fuck.

Fountain of Youth is streaming on Apple TV.