Fountain of Youth
Guy Ritchie dishes up a lightweight, colourful Boys’ Own adventure with striking location work and fascinating historical detail.
An incredible journey: Natalie Portman and John Krasinski
Photo courtesy of Apple TV+.
Luke’s father always said that the “journey was more important than the prize.” And so it is with Guy Ritchie’s larky action-adventure aimed at older children. Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) is a tomb raider and high-end art thief who is on a quest to find the ultimate treasure of pre-history, the Holy Grail, the Lost Ark of archaeologists everywhere. Herodotus wrote about it, the Mahabharata talked about it and Alexander the Great travelled the world looking for it. As Luke reminds his sister, “there’s a seed of truth cloaked within every myth, metaphor, or fable.” The trick is to find the code to unlock the path to the location of the ‘Fountain of Youth’ hidden in part, as it happens, on the back of six invaluable works of art by El Greco, Caravaggio, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velázquez and Jan Wildens. But, even if these paintings could be gathered together in one place, who could crack the code that would point to the actual site of the Fountain of Youth?
We first find Luke Purdue on a motorbike navigating the crowded streets of Bangkok. He’s carrying a priceless painting on his back (in a leather roll bag) and is on his way to Hua Lamphong station. However, before we can even work out who Luke is, he is being chased by a gang of gun-toting Thai goons down side streets and across markets leaving behind a wake of pandemonium. The Thai cartel, a surprisingly well-groomed British detective (Arian Moayed) and a ridiculously beautiful operative played by Mexico’s Eiza González, pop up all over the plot to pad up the running time and to add Guy Ritchie’s singular brand of combat and chaos. Which is a shame as the story is intriguing enough without the need for all the fisticuffs and gunplay.
Back in London, Luke turns up to visit his sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) who is, conveniently, a curator at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. She also helps set up the context as they explain everything to each other for our benefit. Then, using a touch of neat misdirection, Luke steals a Rembrandt (the wrong Rembrandt, as it happens), leading to a car chase through a very Liverpudlian-looking London.
The writer of all this is none other than James Vanderbilt, whose very own great-grandfather, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Sr, he has written into the storyline. Vanderbilt Sr perished on the RMS Lusitania, when the ocean liner was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915. And in one of the film’s more impressive set pieces, the Lusitania is buoyed to the surface of the North Atlantic when Vanderbilt’s copy of “the right Rembrandt” is retrieved.
The lightweight banter between Luke and Charlotte fails to set any real sparks flying, although Charlotte’s use of such words as ‘mendacious’ and ‘copacetic’ should give the film’s intended audience a good excuse to check their Wiktionary pages when they get home. The real star of the film is production designer Martyn John, whose sets – including the sunken Lusitania, the interior of the Austrian National Library in Vienna and the cavernous bowels of the Pyramids of Giza – are pretty damned impressive. The story, with its secret codes and ancient cyphers, should make the basis for a page-turning novel for children, without all the punch-ups and gunplay so beloved of Guy Ritchie. At least the violence this time round is almost incidental, although the real collateral damage of the high-powered weaponry will no doubt upset bibliophiles and budding archaeologists everywhere. But the imaginative journey to a ludicrous climax was almost worth it.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Eiza González, Domhnall Gleeson, Arian Moayed, Laz Alonso, Carmen Ejogo, Stanley Tucci, Benjamin Chivers, Michael Epp, Steve Tran, Daniel De Bourg.
Dir Guy Ritchie, Pro David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, Tripp Vinson, Jake Myers, James Vanderbilt, William Sherak and Paul Neinstein, Screenplay James Vanderbilt, Ph Ed Wild, Pro Des Martyn John, Ed James Herbert, Music Christopher Benstead, Costumes Loulou Bontemps, Sound Ben Chick.
Apple Studios/Skydance Media/Vinson Films/Toff Guy Films/Project X Entertainment/Radio Silence Productions-Apple TV+.
125 mins. USA/UK. 2025. US Rel: 23 May 2025. UK Rel: 24 May 2025. Cert. 12A.
