On May 23rd, 2025, director Guy Ritchie’s most recent project, Fountain of Youth, was released on Apple TV. The film follows the misadventures of estranged siblings Luke (John Krasinski) and Charlotte (Natalie Portman) as they embark on an international heist to locate the mythical fountain of youth. The movie, which also features Stanley Tucci, Domhnall Gleeson, and Eiza González, operated on a shocking $180 million budget—that’s a lot for a straight-to-streaming movie, even if it boasts an all-star cast. In the end, we found the movie rather enjoyable, but it does suffer from a host of clichés. For instance, the characters have to do a lot of over-explaining in order to provide viewers with enough context about the complex archaeological mysteries they are solving, and the plot is littered with MacGuffins and dei ex machina that miraculously provide the characters with an escape from any difficult situation. As a result, it felt unoriginal at times, mirroring the arcs of action-adventure classics like Indiana Jones, The Da Vinci Code, Jungle Cruise, Uncharted, and more. Of course, many of these tropes are hallmarks of the genre rather than missteps on the part of the writing team, so they don’t take away from the movie’s entertainment value.

Something that really bothered us throughout the film, though, was Charlotte’s tendency to play the victim. Again and again, she chooses to aid the team in their endeavors, and, again and again, she laments that they forced her to return. Not only was it repetitive, but it quickly became exhausting. Additionally, after the events of the film, we hope that her son, Thomas, grows up in a more stable environment. While he began the film with two loving parents who were ready to fight a custody battle for him, his father almost immediately abandoned him to travel to Japan, while his mother swiftly forsook his safety and began involving him in the team’s dangerous expeditions. When they entered the pyramids, we found ourselves hoping that they’d leave him behind, only to be surprised (...or not) when he appeared on screen again. In the future, we hope he can find a safe place to stay while his mother and uncle commit crimes—perhaps, for instance, he could stay with the inspector or Stanley Tucci’s character. 

Speaking of Stanley Tucci, his role in the film was shockingly small; it consisted of only one scene and a voiceover. About halfway through the movie, when he still had not appeared, we theorized that he was going to be playing Luke and Charlotte’s deceased father, who we believed was secretly alive (which sparked an interesting conversation about whether or not it would be awkward to play your brother-in-law’s father). We were very disappointed that this did not come to pass—in fact, Tucci’s character was never even given a name. It felt like he may have visited John Krasinski on set one day and accidentally gotten roped into filming a cameo.

The movie does have a lot of good moments, though. For instance, the opening sequence is very witty and entertaining, and, in our opinion, the film’s sanitized violence was a good fit for the genre and target audience. The pacing is well-executed, too, confirming that the movie has a good justification for its two-hour runtime, unlike many modern releases. Additionally, we were glad to see that the writers didn’t forcibly fulfill either of the movie’s romances at its conclusion, instead opting to leave the storyline open-ended.

Overall, we would give this movie a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars. We wouldn’t have wanted to pay to see it in theatres, but it was very entertaining, and it certainly stands out as the best movie we’ve reviewed this year.