The Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels director’s latest feels very familiar.
That Indiana Jones vibe is hard to capture, and lord knows people have been trying for years. The closest in tone is maybe 1999’s The Mummy, but now here comes wide boy director Guy Ritchie to demonstrate why imitation is not always the most sincere form of flattery.
Fountain of Youth Trailer
What’s the plot?
John Krasinski and Natalie Portman are sibling treasure hunters Luke and Charlotte Purdue. He’s a disgraced archaeologist, she’s a museum curator, they’re on the outs… until they’re forced to work together to track down a fabulous treasure. If you guessed it’s the Fountain of Youth, no gold star for you, because it’s blindingly obvious. If you guessed it was their father’s lifelong obsession? Again, no star. This is by-the-numbers adventurin’ brought to us by director Guy Ritchie, as we already mentioned, and screenwriter James Vanderbilt, whose wildly varying career provides no clue as to whether this’ll be worth your time.
Who’s in it?
- John Krasinski is Luke Purdue
- Natalie Portman is Charlotte Purdue
- Eiza González is Esme
- Domhnall Gleeson is Owen Carver
- Arian Moayed is Inspector Jamal Abbas
- Laz Alonso is Patrick Murphy
- Carmen Ejogo is Deb McCall
- Stanley Tucci is the Elder
- Daniel de Bourg is Harold Cross
- Steve Tran is Kasem
- Benjamin Chivers is Thomas
- Michael Epp is Praeger
When’s it out?
Fountain of Youth is streaming in Australia on Apple TV+ right now.
What’s the vibe?
Like somebody spent $180 million on the sort of cheerfully cheap direct-to-VHS fodder that used to follow blockbuster releases like sharks following a live sheep cargo ship. The obvious antecedents – Doctor Henry Jones Jr aside – are the National Treasure movies with old mate Nicolas Cage, and let’s face it – even they top out at “okay for a rainy arvo”. Still, watching beautiful people hare around the world doing daring deeds isn’t the worst way to kill a couple of hours.
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