2025 - FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH - another day another action film from a streaming site

In the golden age of Hollywood this kind of film would have been produced by a movie studio's B-unit.  It would have been made on a tight budget, shot completely on the studio lot and feature second string actors.  But as they say times have changed.

Streaming services now produce variations of the B movie formula they now have money to burn. They can buy expensive behind the camera talent, in this case the director Guy Ritchie (who I am sure didn't come cheap).  They actually film on location and they cast what are or were considered A list stars (usually middle aged performers).  What they don't seem to have figured out is how to put together an interesting story and characters to balance the constant bombardment of action scenes for the ADD television crowd.

 

The Fountain of Youth is what I would call an internet movie.  You can sit with your computer and play solitare while simultaneously having this movie on in the background.  The actors in this case, John Krasinski and Natalie Portmann play a feuding brother and sister in search of the Fountain of Youth. 

You have to wonder who's decision it was to have Krasinski and Portmann as brother and sister it seems to me they would have been a more interesting couple as boyfriend and girlfriend but then again nobody asked me.

Guy Ritchie doesn't seem very interested in this film, with the exception of a couple of decent action scenes he's just walking through the plot to get to the finish line.  This film is clearly influenced by the Indiana Jones series, particularly that search for the Holy Grail one.  I also detect some borrowing from Howard Hawk's Land of the Pharaohs towards the end with all the running around inside an Egyptian tomb.

 

The Fountain of Youth is ultimately just another time killer of a streaming action film which it seems like I've seen a million times already.  

The film was written by James Vanderbilt who clearly watched those Indiana Jones films a lot, the running time is a very overlong 125 minutes.