Director Man Ritchie exploded onto the movie scene again in 1998 with the frenetic “Lock, Inventory, and Two Smoking Barrels,” a scrappy however earnest crime flick that established the younger director’s iconoclastic voice and propensity for bloke-forward, sweatily masculine tales. Ritchie’s movies are hardly ever elegant, and solely look as polished as his budgets will permit. He tends to vaunt flippant, laidback protagonists, who would simply as quickly fireplace up a bong with you than go on an journey. His Sherlock Holmes was much less a detective as an excellent dude together with his personal man-cave and a membership to a combat membership. In his “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” when Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) launched he had been drugged, he casually laid down on a sofa, cautious to not muss his hair; he knew what being drugged felt like. Even Ritchie’s King Arthur (Charlie Hunnam), in the ultra-bomb “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,” was a beer lout, saying the Spherical Desk by saying, “It is a desk. You sit at it.”
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However when Ritchie directed the horrendously bland Disney remake “Aladdin,” he proved that he may swallow all of his directorly instincts and toe the corporate line. “Aladdin” may have been directed by anybody, presenting its crisp digital visuals and impeccably organized songs with the sort of pat, industrial effectivity normally dealt with by a Brett Ratner or a Shawn Levy. Ritchie, along with being a scrappy lover of smoky British blokes, was additionally an obedient firm man, able to following studio notes and handing over bland-but-generally-watchable blockbusters.
Ritchie is most definitely within the latter mildew with “Fountain of Youth,” an earnest Rip-Off of the Misplaced Ark, introduced with out a trace of humor, self-awareness, or irony. “Fountain of Youth” is as secure and predictable as films come, attempting to recapture — with solely fitfully success — a lighthearted caper tone of early Spielberg. The movie lacks the wonderment and pleasure of Indiana Jones, but it surely’s not fairly as dumb as “The Da Vinci Code,” and positively much less obnoxious than, say, “Crimson Discover.”
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That, nevertheless, is the matrix on which this movie falls.
Every little thing outdated is outdated once more in Fountain of Youth
John Krasinski performs Luke, a captivating, jokey artwork thief who, due to his heisting habits, has attracted enemies across the globe. Whereas working from one stated enemy within the movie’s Bangkok-set opening, Luke runs afoul of a dazzlingly engaging INTERPOL cop named Esme (Eiza González) and so they immediately kind a Valjean/Javert relationship, solely with a hair extra sexual pressure. Like every thing on this movie, although, the relationships are established by apparent snippets of dialogue, not any sort of real chemistry.
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Luke then flees to his sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) who’s in the midst of a messy divorce. Charlotte, as talked about above, makes use of plain, expository dialogue to speak about her and Luke’s stalled relationship with their useless, treasure-hunting father, and the way Luke is an irascible prison due to unresolved daddy points. Their backstory can be uninteresting even when it had been introduced subtly and discreetly, however the script (by “Zodiac” and “Scream VI” scribe James Vanderbilt) clangs so loudly with its brazen perspicuity that its clichés appear all of the extra obvious. Charlotte is a museum curator, and Luke instantly will get on her unhealthy facet by snatching a portray from the wall proper in entrance of her. This introduces one other clichéd cop character, this one performed by Arian Moayed. Who, to be truthful, seems to be dazzling in a houndstooth coat.
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Luke, on the lam, additionally snatches Charlotte herself, and enlists her to hitch his band of merry heisters, which incorporates Patrick (Laz Alonso), Deb (Carmen Ejogo), and his mysterious benefactor, the cancer-ridden billionaire Owen (Domhnall Gleeson).
Fountain of Youth is slick and watchable, however wholly uncreative
Cease me in the event you’ve heard this one: it appears that evidently there are secret codes written in invisible ink on the backs of the work that Luke has been stealing. If accurately deciphered, they might result in the situation of the Fountain of Youth. Like, the precise pure spring that’s stated to grant everlasting life. The identical one Gilgamesh was on the lookout for.
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And, sure, “Fountain of Youth” is borrowing plot factors from the Epic of Gilgamesh, actually the oldest story identified to humankind. Charlotte reluctantly agrees to hitch Luke on his globe-trotting adventures to decipher his portray glyphs. Their adventures will embrace elevating the wreck of the Lusitania (!) to retrieve a hidden portray on board, in addition to stealing a replica of the Depraved Bible (the real-life misprint that learn “Thou shalt commit adultery” within the ebook of Exodus) positioned in a library in Vienna.
When Dan Brown wrote “The Da Vinci Code,” he lined up his archeological hooey with an unbearable cloak of portent, pretending that hidden Bible codes and historical portray clues had been one way or the other philosophically necessary. Heck, even Jon Turteltaub’s 2004 bauble-hunting flick “Nationwide Treasure” tried to tie a component of hefty, history-forward American patriotism into its caper sequences. In merciful distinction, “Fountain of Youth” stays joyously insubstantial, its heroes too cool to be impressed by the good artwork they’re continually surrounded by. It is a featherweight hunk of Disney-like treacle, tapping into every thing you discovered in ninth grade historical past.
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The nice pacing is sort of a detriment to Fountain of Youth
Sadly, as a number one man, John Krasinski is simply as insubstantial because the movie round him. He’s not humorous sufficient to be an irascible, lovable f***-up, abut he is additionally not sexual or dazzling sufficient to be a Danny Ocean-like charmer. He, like every thing else in “Fountain of Youth” is environment friendly. Dare I say, he lacks the charisma to carry collectively a movie like this. Natalie Portman, in the meantime, is attempting to take her character critically, however she is undone by the movie’s bland writing; Charlotte swings wildly forwards and backwards between having fun with herself and being outraged about nearly being shot, all contingent of the necessities of the scene. She by no means appears really afraid. And if Luke is flippant and eccentric — which additionally means he is by no means afraid — there’s by no means any sense of hazard.
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The movie’s pacing is tight and swift, and its visuals are wide-open and easy-to-comprehend. The perfect one can say for “Fountain of Youth” is that it’s systematically coherent and simply watchable. Which, I perceive, is faint reward. The sort of visible and storytelling readability that Ritchie presents in “Fountain of Youth” must be a part of any main blockbuster’s birthright. Too many blockbusters are slowed down with muddy pictures, clumsy modifying, and no sense of spatial continuity. That Ritchie was in a position to grasp these issues for “Fountain of Youth” merely meant that he rose to the center.
And that is the place I am going to have to go away “Fountain of Youth.” It is an unambitious world-traveling journey cloaked in your grandfather’s favourite sweater. It was outdated earlier than it began, identified earlier than we knew it. You’ve got seen it earlier than, and you may see it once more. It has “sensible individual stuff” in it (Rembrandt! Classical music! The Pyramids!), but it surely’s not really sensible or considerate and even conscious of historical past. It is an costly cartoon to go to sleep to. It’s the definition of common.
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/Movie Score: 5 out of 10
“Fountain of Youth” will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on Could 23, 2025.