Critic Reviews

Portman acquits herself charmingly, as she usually does in her occasional slumming blockbuster role; maybe she and Krasinski should have swapped parts. The erstwhile Jim Halpert isn’t even all that terrible here; at least he makes his character’s smarmy-doofus quality work for his non-relationship with Esme. The real star, though, is Ritchie’s unflagging spirit, as if chasing after bigger blockbusters in the 2010s led him to his own rejuvenating fountain.

Occasionally muddled, mostly convoluted, and yet still broadly entertaining, it’s a shame this glossy and big budget affair (you really can’t fake Egyptian pyramids like these), will only exist as a streaming pick on Apple TV+.

It’s a movie designed as functional entertainment, and for lack of a better word it functions.

It's a perfectly watchable movie that feels designed to keep you entertained for two hours on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

The movie stars are present, the film looks slick and shiny, and the adventure doesn’t ever let up, but something about it ultimately rings hollow, and by the second hour, you’re left wondering what the point of all of this is, at least until the characters outright explain it to you without any real emotional payoff.

Fountain of Youth is a robust showcase of Guy Ritchie’s eye for action, but it falls well short of capturing the magic of the quintessential treasure-hunting movies it’s so clearly trying to replicate.

Ritchie is a prolific action director, and he leans action here, which is fine. When it's not being distractingly stylized, the action is good. But treasure hunt movies have a nerdy side that sometimes feels undervalued by this film.

The film is the sort of mindless, glossy entertainment tailor-made for streaming, even if its large-scale action sequences and exciting locations would look great on the big screen.

Despite Guy Ritchie’s herculean efforts to combine a whole lot of immediately familiar elements into a brisk, occasionally imaginative “adventure movie” potpourri, screenwriter James Vanderbilt’s reinvention of footnotes from his real-life family history never quite achieves the consistent balance between real-world seriousness and buoyant escapism demanded of a globe-trotting treasure hunt like this.

The film lacks the wonderment and excitement of Indiana Jones, but it's not quite as dumb as "The Da Vinci Code," and certainly less obnoxious than, say, "Red Notice."