REVIEW: Fountain of Youth [2025]

Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 125 minutes
Release Date: May 23rd, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Apple TV+
Director(s): Guy Ritchie
Writer(s): James Vanderbilt

Some things you can’t explain. You can only experience.

“What if Dan Brown, but with a sense of humor?” That’s the pitch James Vanderbilt would go with in an honest world, although I have a feeling his actual pitch was more along the lines of, “What if Indiana Jones, but the lead is a pair of squabbling siblings?” The truth, however, is that Vanderbilt’s Fountain of Youth (as directed by Guy Ritchie) is more, “What if Hollywood still thought green-lighting the National Treasure movies would prove profitable in 2025, but let’s drop it on streaming instead of in theaters so we’ll never really know?”

It starts with some fun flavor as Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) is seen driving through a busy Thai street on a scooter, constantly hitting ignore on his phone until the man calling him (Steve Tran’s Kasem) pulls up in a car to scream “Answer your phone!” out the window. Luke puts on his best Jim Halpert smile, tells this heavy who’s demanding he hand over the priceless painting strapped on his back what he wants to hear, and then makes a run for it. The ensuing chase is energetic, funny, and destructive, culminating in our hero’s escape proving short-lived when accosted by Eiza González’s Esme. Luke has enemies everywhere.

Well, he makes another of his estranged sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) by using his appearance in London as a ruse to commit a crime to which she will inevitably be labeled an accomplice. That’s when we meet Interpol’s Inspector Jamal Abbas (Arian Moayed)—one more foe for Luke—and discover he was actually trying to steal two things: a Rembrandt and her. Because these siblings used to go on “archeological” adventures with their father before he passed. Luke wants to rekindle that camaraderie and save Charlotte from the “boring” life this script really wants us to believe she thinks it is too. The band’s back together.

It’s a lengthy bit of expository action to simply get the Purdues back on the same page, but also a necessary runtime considering all the peripheral characters we must meet for the plot to finally get going. Besides those aforementioned foes are also Luke’s allies in Murph (Laz Alonso), Deb (Carmen Ejogo), and their financial backer Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson). The latter is the catalyst for the mayhem: a dying billionaire who cajoled Luke into helping him find the fountain of youth to cure his cancer. It’s a quest that will earn the Purdue name a reverent luster if they prove successful. And if Abbas doesn’t arrest him first. And if Esme doesn’t kill him along the way.

Throw in Charlotte’s musical prodigy son Thomas (Benjamin Chivers) and the gang is set with uniquely particular skills at the ready that will prove crucial to solving at least one subsequent brick wall each. There’s a heist aboard the sunken Lusitania. Another within a German library’s secret collection room. And even the desecration of the Pyramids at Giza. None of these incidents are that compelling on their own, but Vanderbilt and Ritchie do well distracting from this fact by supplying something else to look at. Carver’s secretive nature. Thomas’ inexplicable presence amongst international criminals still using their real names despite Interpol’s chase. Luke and Esme’s will-they-won’t-they chemistry that works for entertainment value if nothing else.

Don’t therefore think too hard about what’s happening. Fans of Dan Brown and the National Treasure series shouldn’t have any trouble with that. Heck, I didn’t really have any trouble with it either until the group arrived in Egypt and the filmmakers showed they could actually do something more interesting than generic fast-speed car drifts and automatic weaponry fights that inexplicably never seem to be able to hit a top billed actor. That’s when I started to realize it had all been empty calories prolonging a mostly uninspired journey collecting obtuse clues that the Purdues just happen to have the knowledge necessary to connect, throw away, and move on to the next.

It’s also around then that I finally put my finger on why Krasinski felt so woefully miscast. Don’t get me wrong, Portman does too—but she’s good enough to push past that fact and deliver a solid performance anyway. I like Krasinski, but Jim Halpert: Tomb Raider is a huge stretch since he’s at his best when used as support (no, I haven’t watched “Jack Ryan”). The quips with González? Fantastic. Driving the bus? He gives off such “little brother” energy that the play at being “big brother” falls flat except when talking to Thomas. But that’s also when I realized he talked to everyone else like he talked to the boy: still wholesome and endearing, but also patronizing when opposite an adult.

This might be intentional, though, because Luke must be naive enough to not see what’s happening. (Vanderbilt really thinks keeping a character one-dimensional is the same as pretending he is something he isn’t when he so obviously is.) So, make him into an expendable rube. An idealistic puppy we know has a kick coming his way with no way to stop it. Make him … have visions directly inferring upon the plot in ways that are both tedious in their literalism and superfluous in their “you talk in your sleep” allusions that never payoff? Fountain of Youth is full of these details that seem interesting if there was a season of television to expand upon them but prove completely useless in a ninety-minute movie bloated beyond two-hours.

It’s only perfect then that the climactic action sequence that borders on being captivating with its supernatural potential (the pyramid set design and puzzle chambers are admittedly gorgeous) winds down from sixty to zero on a dime with an Oasis “Live Forever” needle drop ushering us towards the credits with record-scratching “Thanks for coming!” whiplash just when we finally felt some adrenaline. We spend two-hours working up to this big set-piece and its abrupt cover-it-in-cement-and-forget-it ending becomes the film’s abrupt ending too. Foreplay for days and zero aftercare. Whatever fun I thought I had suddenly felt hollow because it truly led nowhere.