Guy Ritchie's fun and brainless crime caper may well have legs

The Advertiser

2 days ago

Fountain of Youth (M, 126 minutes)
3 stars
The recent and final chapter of the Indian Jones films, The Dial of Destiny, was the close of a 40-plus-year film journey, and as nature abhors a vacuum, Guy Ritchie's Fountain of Youth comes along from Apple TV+ hoping to fill that vacuum.
Ritchie is a talent, to be sure, but while he used to come up with refreshing original material, his recent fare consists of what is referred to as IP films.
That is, films that exploit existing intellectual property, like the 2019 live-action Disney remake of Aladdin, his 2015 reboot of the 60s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or even recently adapting his own movie The Gentlemen for a streaming series.
They're inventively directed but don't give you anything you don't expect, and that is Fountain of Youth, a film desperately hoping to become a film franchise and exploitable IP.
Ritchie, Apple TV and the cast of big names give it everything they've got trying to make that happen.
Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) is a professional adventurer and as the film opens he is being chased through the Bangkok markets by a cadre of villains trying to recover a painting he has stolen from them - and so perhaps Luke is actually the villain.
Among those in pursuit is Esme (Eiza Gonzalez), seemingly pursuing Luke separate to the other bad guys, and almost successful at getting the painting back. Eventually escaping, John visits his sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) at her work at one of London's major art galleries, where he brazenly steals yet another painting and runs off with Charlotte on his heels.
Charlotte is furious with her brother, as well you might be when you'll likely lose your career thanks to his light fingers, but it seems the Purdue siblings grew up the children of an adventurer thief, like the filmic children of Nicholas Cage's National Treasure hero or Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft.
Luke has assembled his late father's old team of assistants, spending the money of billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson) on the hunt for the mythical fountain of youth. Carver claims to have a terminal illness and is prepared to spend whatever is necessary, and so the team has bought and robbed a collection of priceless art that have clues to the location of the mythic fountain. As her career has been now tanked, Charlotte may as well come along for the ride.
Guy Ritchie's film is certainly fun, there is certainly big big money being spent on filming in exotic locations and some of the action set-pieces are very well executed.
He goes for practical stunt work over CGI where he can, and the action has a believability to it, with Krasinski not trying to be Jason Statham with a PhD, and limping away painfully from each fight scene.
But James Vanderbilt's screenplay is fairly paint-by-numbers, and if you've seen any of the National Treasure films you could confidently predict most of the plot and dialogue.
There's even Stanley Tucci as the head of a secret organisation that exists to protect the location of the fountain of youth, though he's only on screen for about as long as you can say 'Hey, isn't this eerily similar to the plot of The Mummy?'
Frankly the only thing about he film with a ring of authenticity to it is the snarky dialogue between the two siblings, and Krasinski and Portman play well together.
In fact, if this is just the first in an ongoing franchise, perhaps the filmmakers' biggest mistake was just calling it Fountain of Youth and not "Luke Purdue and the Fountain of Youth" or "Charlotte Purdue and the Fountain of Youth", as either character could take the Indiana Jones mantle.
Fun and a bit brainless, Ritchie's film is worth the price of the AppleTV+ free trial.
Fountain of Youth (M, 126 minutes)
3 stars
The recent and final chapter of the Indian Jones films, The Dial of Destiny, was the close of a 40-plus-year film journey, and as nature abhors a vacuum, Guy Ritchie's Fountain of Youth comes along from Apple TV+ hoping to fill that vacuum.
Ritchie is a talent, to be sure, but while he used to come up with refreshing original material, his recent fare consists of what is referred to as IP films.
That is, films that exploit existing intellectual property, like the 2019 live-action Disney remake of Aladdin, his 2015 reboot of the 60s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or even recently adapting his own movie The Gentlemen for a streaming series.
They're inventively directed but don't give you anything you don't expect, and that is Fountain of Youth, a film desperately hoping to become a film franchise and exploitable IP.
Ritchie, Apple TV and the cast of big names give it everything they've got trying to make that happen.
Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) is a professional adventurer and as the film opens he is being chased through the Bangkok markets by a cadre of villains trying to recover a painting he has stolen from them - and so perhaps Luke is actually the villain.
Among those in pursuit is Esme (Eiza Gonzalez), seemingly pursuing Luke separate to the other bad guys, and almost successful at getting the painting back. Eventually escaping, John visits his sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) at her work at one of London's major art galleries, where he brazenly steals yet another painting and runs off with Charlotte on his heels.
Charlotte is furious with her brother, as well you might be when you'll likely lose your career thanks to his light fingers, but it seems the Purdue siblings grew up the children of an adventurer thief, like the filmic children of Nicholas Cage's National Treasure hero or Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft.
Luke has assembled his late father's old team of assistants, spending the money of billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson) on the hunt for the mythical fountain of youth. Carver claims to have a terminal illness and is prepared to spend whatever is necessary, and so the team has bought and robbed a collection of priceless art that have clues to the location of the mythic fountain. As her career has been now tanked, Charlotte may as well come along for the ride.
Guy Ritchie's film is certainly fun, there is certainly big big money being spent on filming in exotic locations and some of the action set-pieces are very well executed.
He goes for practical stunt work over CGI where he can, and the action has a believability to it, with Krasinski not trying to be Jason Statham with a PhD, and limping away painfully from each fight scene.
But James Vanderbilt's screenplay is fairly paint-by-numbers, and if you've seen any of the National Treasure films you could confidently predict most of the plot and dialogue.
There's even Stanley Tucci as the head of a secret organisation that exists to protect the location of the fountain of youth, though he's only on screen for about as long as you can say 'Hey, isn't this eerily similar to the plot of The Mummy?'
Frankly the only thing about he film with a ring of authenticity to it is the snarky dialogue between the two siblings, and Krasinski and Portman play well together.
In fact, if this is just the first in an ongoing franchise, perhaps the filmmakers' biggest mistake was just calling it Fountain of Youth and not "Luke Purdue and the Fountain of Youth" or "Charlotte Purdue and the Fountain of Youth", as either character could take the Indiana Jones mantle.
Fun and a bit brainless, Ritchie's film is worth the price of the AppleTV+ free trial.
Fountain of Youth (M, 126 minutes)
3 stars
The recent and final chapter of the Indian Jones films, The Dial of Destiny, was the close of a 40-plus-year film journey, and as nature abhors a vacuum, Guy Ritchie's Fountain of Youth comes along from Apple TV+ hoping to fill that vacuum.
Ritchie is a talent, to be sure, but while he used to come up with refreshing original material, his recent fare consists of what is referred to as IP films.
That is, films that exploit existing intellectual property, like the 2019 live-action Disney remake of Aladdin, his 2015 reboot of the 60s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or even recently adapting his own movie The Gentlemen for a streaming series.
They're inventively directed but don't give you anything you don't expect, and that is Fountain of Youth, a film desperately hoping to become a film franchise and exploitable IP.
Ritchie, Apple TV and the cast of big names give it everything they've got trying to make that happen.
Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) is a professional adventurer and as the film opens he is being chased through the Bangkok markets by a cadre of villains trying to recover a painting he has stolen from them - and so perhaps Luke is actually the villain.
Among those in pursuit is Esme (Eiza Gonzalez), seemingly pursuing Luke separate to the other bad guys, and almost successful at getting the painting back. Eventually escaping, John visits his sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) at her work at one of London's major art galleries, where he brazenly steals yet another painting and runs off with Charlotte on his heels.
Charlotte is furious with her brother, as well you might be when you'll likely lose your career thanks to his light fingers, but it seems the Purdue siblings grew up the children of an adventurer thief, like the filmic children of Nicholas Cage's National Treasure hero or Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft.
Luke has assembled his late father's old team of assistants, spending the money of billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson) on the hunt for the mythical fountain of youth. Carver claims to have a terminal illness and is prepared to spend whatever is necessary, and so the team has bought and robbed a collection of priceless art that have clues to the location of the mythic fountain. As her career has been now tanked, Charlotte may as well come along for the ride.
Guy Ritchie's film is certainly fun, there is certainly big big money being spent on filming in exotic locations and some of the action set-pieces are very well executed.
He goes for practical stunt work over CGI where he can, and the action has a believability to it, with Krasinski not trying to be Jason Statham with a PhD, and limping away painfully from each fight scene.
But James Vanderbilt's screenplay is fairly paint-by-numbers, and if you've seen any of the National Treasure films you could confidently predict most of the plot and dialogue.
There's even Stanley Tucci as the head of a secret organisation that exists to protect the location of the fountain of youth, though he's only on screen for about as long as you can say 'Hey, isn't this eerily similar to the plot of The Mummy?'
Frankly the only thing about he film with a ring of authenticity to it is the snarky dialogue between the two siblings, and Krasinski and Portman play well together.
In fact, if this is just the first in an ongoing franchise, perhaps the filmmakers' biggest mistake was just calling it Fountain of Youth and not "Luke Purdue and the Fountain of Youth" or "Charlotte Purdue and the Fountain of Youth", as either character could take the Indiana Jones mantle.
Fun and a bit brainless, Ritchie's film is worth the price of the AppleTV+ free trial.
Fountain of Youth (M, 126 minutes)
3 stars
The recent and final chapter of the Indian Jones films, The Dial of Destiny, was the close of a 40-plus-year film journey, and as nature abhors a vacuum, Guy Ritchie's Fountain of Youth comes along from Apple TV+ hoping to fill that vacuum.
Ritchie is a talent, to be sure, but while he used to come up with refreshing original material, his recent fare consists of what is referred to as IP films.
That is, films that exploit existing intellectual property, like the 2019 live-action Disney remake of Aladdin, his 2015 reboot of the 60s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or even recently adapting his own movie The Gentlemen for a streaming series.
They're inventively directed but don't give you anything you don't expect, and that is Fountain of Youth, a film desperately hoping to become a film franchise and exploitable IP.
Ritchie, Apple TV and the cast of big names give it everything they've got trying to make that happen.
Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) is a professional adventurer and as the film opens he is being chased through the Bangkok markets by a cadre of villains trying to recover a painting he has stolen from them - and so perhaps Luke is actually the villain.
Among those in pursuit is Esme (Eiza Gonzalez), seemingly pursuing Luke separate to the other bad guys, and almost successful at getting the painting back. Eventually escaping, John visits his sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) at her work at one of London's major art galleries, where he brazenly steals yet another painting and runs off with Charlotte on his heels.
Charlotte is furious with her brother, as well you might be when you'll likely lose your career thanks to his light fingers, but it seems the Purdue siblings grew up the children of an adventurer thief, like the filmic children of Nicholas Cage's National Treasure hero or Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft.
Luke has assembled his late father's old team of assistants, spending the money of billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson) on the hunt for the mythical fountain of youth. Carver claims to have a terminal illness and is prepared to spend whatever is necessary, and so the team has bought and robbed a collection of priceless art that have clues to the location of the mythic fountain. As her career has been now tanked, Charlotte may as well come along for the ride.
Guy Ritchie's film is certainly fun, there is certainly big big money being spent on filming in exotic locations and some of the action set-pieces are very well executed.
He goes for practical stunt work over CGI where he can, and the action has a believability to it, with Krasinski not trying to be Jason Statham with a PhD, and limping away painfully from each fight scene.
But James Vanderbilt's screenplay is fairly paint-by-numbers, and if you've seen any of the National Treasure films you could confidently predict most of the plot and dialogue.
There's even Stanley Tucci as the head of a secret organisation that exists to protect the location of the fountain of youth, though he's only on screen for about as long as you can say 'Hey, isn't this eerily similar to the plot of The Mummy?'
Frankly the only thing about he film with a ring of authenticity to it is the snarky dialogue between the two siblings, and Krasinski and Portman play well together.
In fact, if this is just the first in an ongoing franchise, perhaps the filmmakers' biggest mistake was just calling it Fountain of Youth and not "Luke Purdue and the Fountain of Youth" or "Charlotte Purdue and the Fountain of Youth", as either character could take the Indiana Jones mantle.
Fun and a bit brainless, Ritchie's film is worth the price of the AppleTV+ free trial.