Fountain Of Youth Review: An Indiana Jones Knock-Off

Director Guy Ritchie exploded on the film’s stage in 1998 with The Frenetic “Log, the broth and two smoking barrels”, “ A confusing but serious criminal film which established the voice and the propensity of the young director with the male stories of the guy forms and the sweat. Ritchie films are rarely elegant, and do not seem as polite as its budgets will allow. He tends to live from casual and relaxed protagonists, who would make a bang with you as early as to go on an adventure. His Sherlock Holmes was less a detective as a brilliant guy with his own man cellar and a subscription to a combat club. In his “uncle’s man”, when Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) released, he had been drugged, he lying down with casualness on a sofa, being careful not to make her hair; He knew what drugs looked like. Even the king of Ritchie Arthur (Charlie Hunnam), in King Arthur Ultra-Bomb: Legend of the sword “,” Was a Lager, announcing the round table saying: “It’s a table. You sit down.”

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But when Ritchie directed the horribly bland remake of Disney “Aladdin”, he proved that he could swallow all his instincts directors and Toe the Company Line. “Aladdin” could have been led by anyone, presenting their crunchy digital visuals and impeccably arranged songs with the type of commercial efficiency usually managed by a Brett Ratner or a Levy Shawn. Ritchie, in addition to being a disjointed lover of Smoky British Blokes, was also an obedient man, capable of following studio notes and transforming bland but generously regardable blockbusters.

Ritchie is most certainly in this last mold with “Fountain of Youth”, a serious scam of the lost arch, presented without a hint of humor, self -awareness or irony. “Fountain of Youth” is as safe and predictable as films, trying to recover – with only unfortunate success – a light caper of the start of Spielberg. The film does not have the wonder and the excitement of Indiana Jones, but it is not as stupid as “the Da Vinci code”, and certainly less unpleasant than, let’s say, “red opinion”.

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However, this is the matrix on which this film falls.

John Krasinski embodies Luke, a charming Jokey art thief who, thanks to his breakage habits, attracted enemies around the world. While fleeing a said enemy in the opening of Bangkok’s film, Luke dates back to a dazzling interpol cop with Eiza González) and they instantly form a Valjean / Javert relationship, only with sexual tension more hair. Like everything in this film, however, relationships are established through obvious extracts from dialogue, not a kind of real chemistry.

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Luke then fled to his sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) who is in the middle of a disorderly divorce. Charlotte, as mentioned above, uses a simple exposure dialogue to talk about her and the blocked relationship of Luke with their dead father and hunter to the treasure, and how Luke is an irascible criminal due to unresolved dad problems. Their substantive frame would be boring even if it had been subtly and discreetly presented, but the script (by “Zodiac” and “Scream VI” scribe James Vanderbilt) clings so hard with its cheeky person that its clichés seem even more apparent. Charlotte is a curator of the museum, and Luke immediately arrives on her bad side by tearing a painting from the wall just in front of her. This presents another character of a cliché cop, this one played by Arian Moayed. Who, to be fair, looks dazzling in a coat in no hunting.

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Luke, on the LAM, also tears Charlotte herself and enrolled him to join her group of Merry Heisters, who includes Patrick (Laz Alonso), Deb (Carmen Ejogo), and his mysterious benefactor, the billionaire of Owen cancer (Domhnall Gleeson).

Stop me if you heard this one: it seems that there are secret codes written in invisible ink on the back of the paintings that Luke stolen. If they are properly deciphered, they can lead to the site of the youth fountain. For example, the real natural spring which grants eternal life. The same as Gilgamesh was looking for.

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And, yes, “Fountain of Youth” borrows points from the plot to the epic of Gilgamesh, literally the oldest known history of humanity. Charlotte reluctantly accepts to join Luke in her adventures of globetrotter to decipher his paint glyphs. Their adventures will include the breeding of the wreckage of the Lusitania (!) To recover a hidden painting on board, as well as to steal a copy of the nasty Bible (the actual erroneous impression which read “you commit adultery” in the book of Exodus) located in a Vienna library.

When Dan Brown wrote “The Da Vinci Code”, “ He covered his archaeological hooey with an unbearable cloak of pretender, claiming that the hidden biblical codes and the indices of ancient painting were somehow philosophically important. Devil, even The Bauble Hunting Film 2004 by Jon Turteltab “Treasure” National Treasure “in 2004 I tried to link an element of heavy American patriotism and avant-garde to its caper sequences. In merciful contrast, the “youth fountain” remains joyfully insufficient, her heroes too cool to be impressed by the great art with which they are constantly surrounded. It is a piece of Disney type trial feather, explaining everything you learned in the history of the 9th year.

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Unfortunately, as a leading man, John Krasinski is just as insufficient as the film around him. It is not funny enough to be an irascible and adorable F *** – at the top, it is not more sexual or dazzling to be a charmer of Danny Océan. He, like all the rest of “Fountain of Youth”, is effective. I would dare to say, he does not have the charisma to maintain a film like this together. Natalie Portman, meanwhile, tries to take her character seriously, but she is canceled by the bland writing of the film; Charlotte sketches herself wildly in both directions between having fun and being indigenous to be almost shot, all contingents of the scene. She never really seems to be afraid. And if Luke is casual and fanciful – which also means He is Never afraid – there is never a feeling of danger.

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The rhythm of the film is tight and fast, and its visuals are wide open and easy to compensate. The best can say for “Fountain of Youth” is that it is systematically consistent and easily observable. Which, I understand, is a weak praise. The kind of visual clarity and narration that Ritchie presents in “Fountain of Youth” should be part of the drove of all big blockbuster. Too many blockbusters are bogged down with muddy photography, clumsy modification and no feeling of spatial continuity. That Ritchie was able to master these things for “Fountain of Youth” simply meant that he was going up in the middle.

And that’s where I’m going to have to leave “Fountain of Youth”. It is an adventure to travel in the buried world masked in the favorite sweater of your grandfather. He was old before he started, known before we know it. You have already seen it and you will see it again. It contains “smart people” (Rembrandt! Classical music! Pyramids!), But it is not really intelligent or thoughtful or even aware of history. It is an expensive cartoon for which falling asleep. It is the definition of the average.

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/ Film assessment: 5 out of 10

“Fountain of Youth” will be presented worldwide on Apple TV + on May 23, 2025.