Fountain of Youth

If you had seen a movie and a half about adventure and old artifacts in the past, or played a similar video game, you know what this movie is about. In about 10 minutes through, you will figure it out..the plot, the bad guy etc. That is not the problem. We watch these movies time and time again for the fun ride, the amount of historical nonsense they can cram through while keeping that entertaining. Sense be damned.

What kept most of these movies fun, are the charm, the cheese, the quirks here and there, fun characters, great locations and action. Those often overlapped sense, character depth and meaning. This movie does not lack on the visuals and actions, it lacks in the former 3. I don't know. It felt too clean and devoid of pleasantries that attract you toward a popcorn adventure flick. It is just..too linear.

Perhaps they wanted to be different, or maybe they did not want to offend someone. I can't believe a Guy Ritchie movie could ever unfunny specially when it's meant to have comedic elements. Ah well, whatever the reason, it was in fact, a mistake. 6/10 for pretty people and locations.

If you thought national treasure was lame back in the day, fear not this is way worse. This makes that movie look like citizen kane. I'm a huge fan of John Krasinski but this is very poor.

It just doesn't flow very well, quite typical for a guy Ritchie movie I find. Just jumps from one exotic location to the next without a huge amount of thought about continuity. Every other movie John Krasinski has been in. He has been a complete departure from the office but honestly in this movie he looks more like Jim than anything else he's been in mannerisms aren't acting skills wise. Been waiting awhile for this to come out so yeah, I'm disappointed.

I knew for the trailer that this film was going to be a bit generic but I suppose I was hoping it wouldn't be that generic. As someone who grew up on Indiana Jones, loves Uncharted and has a soft spot for National Treasure this felt very familiar but not in a knowing way because there's nothing this movie does with the established formula that feels remotely unique. Guy Ritchie doesn't bring any of his signature energy to this movie and it's starting to feel like his tendency to put out as many films as possible over the last few years is starting to come back to bite him. Fountain of Youth just feels flat in every way and it ends up feeling like something made for streaming. John Krasinski's a badass and Natalie Portman is charming but it kind of just feels like the script is trying too hard to make them overly likeable and it actually felt a bit annoying after a while. The film starts out a quick pace but starts to drag on in the second half and the climax in particular was a bit of a slog to get through. There's a lot of talented people involved in this movie but I'm not really sure what drew them to it in the first place. It just oozes mediocrity and as someone who's a big Guy Ritchie fan I'd like to see him get a bit more selective with his projects.

I haven't reviewed a movie in half a decade, but I felt a warning was justified in this case. I have had to start and stop this one several times throughout my first and last viewing of this piece of dialogue garbage on Apple TV+.

I went in wanting to like this movie, I'm a huge fan of John Krasinski's work and an even bigger fan of Natalie Portman & her whole repertoire dating back to Leon: The Professional. So expectations were high coming in.

This film is just off in every way. Pacing? Weird. Dialogue? Poorly written, corny and cringe. Acting? Even though the artist have the chops to do so, the writing is so terrible that they do justice to them in a bad way. The acting is laughable from almost every character. Suspense? Predictable and rips off too many mainstream plot lines. Romance? Pathetic attempt, comes off fake. Conflict resolution? I mean, I guess maybe you could say so but the movie is so predictable and corny that you don't even realize that this might be the best part of it because everything else pales in reverse by comparison.

Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time. Huge swing and miss by Apple TV+. This would have bombed at the box office.

No, it's not National treasure 3, in fact it doesn't come that near to being as good as the first 2 National Treasure movies.

However I've seen much worse and it was still quiet enjoyable.

For me not enough of the puzzles and riddles from other films of this ilk and a lot left unexplained.

The film does have Guy Ritchie's style and flair all over it and the efforts of all actors are definitely not in question here. I think maybe this film needed a couple more rewrites before going ahead.

On the whole though, if you have 2 hours to spare and nothing to do.....give it a go.

Alternatively wait and hope for "National Treasure 3"