Fountain Of Youth Review: John Krasinski And Natalie Portman Can't Save This Indiana Jones Copycat

So much time is spent obsessing over the fact that nobody has managed to make a good shark movie since "Jaws," that the fact nobody has made a classic archaeology movie since Steven Spielberg's original "Indiana Jones" trilogy concluded goes comparatively unnoticed. As the definitive blockbuster auteur, it's no surprise that any genre of adventure storytelling he tried his hand at during this untouchable early period has never been equalled by decades of imitators, and yet revisiting any of those early films, he makes the formula seem so simple it's almost baffling nobody has managed to recreate the magic. But even the best films in this mold, from "The Mummy" to "National Treasure," never quite shake off the Indy imitation tag.

Seeing something like Guy Ritchie's straight-to-streaming Apple original "Fountain Of Youth" is another reminder of why Spielberg is the ultimate master, leaving even name-brand directors who have their own distinct style like Ritchie trailing far behind his work from over 40 years ago.

Is it unfair to compare "Fountain of Youth" to the likes of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when the elevator pitch is far closer to a de-romanticized "Romancing the Stone" with squabbling siblings? Undoubtedly, but when the trademark cheeky charisma Guy Ritchie has managed to carry from his early British gangster films into blockbusters as varied as "Sherlock Holmes" and "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" is completely missing in action, all that feels left is a half-hearted attempt to modernize a story that still feels fresher despite predating this by several decades. The filmmaker may have eased into a director-for-hire mode over the past decade, but this is the first time his voice feels lost in the mix, aspiring toward Spielbergian wonder to the extent his own identity is nowhere to be found. Hell, I suspect the first couple of paragraphs of this review are the first time you discovered this was the new Guy Ritchie movie.

The siblings in question are Luke and Charlotte Purdue (John Krasinski and Natalie Portman), the offspring of a wealthy archaeologist who now lead very different lives in his image: the former an explorer and art thief, the latter a museum curator in London. In one of the earliest signs of pure laziness on Ritchie's part, the London scenes are shot entirely in Liverpool, and he doesn't even try to dress up the city as the English capital — a baffling decision considering many of the city's landmarks shown have been used to double up as America in blockbusters like "The Batman," hiding their artificiality with ease in a way this filmmaker can't be bothered to even attempt.

Why are the siblings there? Well, Luke has returned to his estranged sister's life after a high-profile robbery in Bangkok, a crucial step toward finding the next clue revealing the location of the mythical Fountain of Youth, a mission his sister is now enveloped in. And the clock is already ticking, with the enigmatic Esme (Eiza González) already on his tail, trying to stop anybody taking an artifact too powerful for mere mortals to hold. From there, the story reverts to inane formula, with a race-against-time to a brand-new, far-flung location, and a puzzle to reveal the next secret, all resonating with the same excitement as watching somebody else play a "Tomb Raider" video game. The warning signs that Ritchie is adapting James Vanderbilt's undercooked screenplay — an homage to earlier adventure films requiring considerable elevation — on autopilot are present from the opening Bangkok motorcycle chase, as Krasinski speeds around the city and numerous obstacles in a feat of Rube Goldbergian carnage that's flatly staged, paced, and edited.

The oddly boring nature of the action is accompanied by a misfire of either characterization, casting, or both, depending on your views toward John Krasinski. In my opinion, he has too much of a smarmy comic demeanor to ever register as an effective action hero, and even in lighter genre fare that allows its heroes to have sillier touches as this film does, it still feels like a miscalculation of who this character should be. For example, traits you'd expect to find in any stock clone of Harrison Ford's hero historian — the dry sense of humor, or the unassuming heroism — rub uncomfortably with the few ways James Vanderbilt's screenplay tries to flip this archetype, such as making Luke lack any flirtatious chemistry with his female adversaries. At least, I assume that's intentional, because Krasinski's chemistry with Eiza González packs all the steaminess of a cold shower, the actor better at the playful banter against Natalie Portman to the extent any viewer paying half attention would likely miss the sibling part and assume they were the characters getting together.

For a director whose recent work output suggests he moves straight onto the next project the second he calls cut on the last, it's surprising how much of "Fountain of Youth" feels reshot in post, not least a distracting Stanley Tucci exposition-dump cameo that seems to exist purely to fill in a plot hole from an earlier cut. Set in Vatican City but clearly shot somewhere in Britain on an overcast day (once again, Guy Ritchie makes zero effort to dress any of his sets like the locations they're purportedly set in), the scene made me hope this was the last of Tucci's thankless blockbuster supporting roles shot pre-"Conclave" that we'll see, arriving just a couple of months after his snarling turn in "The Electric State," a film that was somehow worse than this. And in a bizarre coincidence, if I had a nickel for every time a Stanley Tucci straight-to-streaming movie ended with an Oasis song this year, I'd have two nickels — which isn't much, but it's weird that it's happened twice.

There is no more worthless question in film criticism than "who is this movie for?" — that's a puzzle for the marketing executives which has no bearing on the quality. But in such an algorithmic homage to adventure blockbusters like this, it's hard not to wonder at times who would find this thrilling; older viewers will have their minds drift to the better films they grew up watching, younger ones will likely be surprised that a story featuring underwater ruins and pyramid tombs can be as boring as this. It'll disappear very quickly from streaming homepages and into the digital ether, unlikely to inspire the same excitement that young generations still have today when introduced to Indy for the first time.

"Fountain of Youth" hits Apple TV+ on May 23.