Fountain of Youth - Might not be Satisfying for Critics and Audience, but I still Enjoyed this Light Treasure Hunt Movie

Yesterday was one of those days where more than one new movies were released in different streaming platform. I opted to watch this one cause it's been a while since I saw the genre of treasure. Without further ado, here's more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Luke Purdue (John Krasinski - If, A Quiet Place etc) had been going around the world searching for paintings that would give clue to the biggest treasure, the fountain of youth. He worked together with his team that consisted of Murphy (Laz Alonso - The Boys TV series, Detained etc) and Deb (Carmen Ejogo - The Penguin mini series, Alien: Covenant etc) and supported financially by the wealthy billionaire Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson - Peter Rabbit, White House Plumbers mini series etc).

Luke later sought the help from his estranged sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman - Thor: Love and Thunder, Star Wars prequel trilogy etc) who also had a knack for finding historical stuff. Despite her disapproval, Charlotte still decided to assist Luke, although it was full of danger as they were chased by the "protector" Esme (Eiza Gonzalez - Ash, Mr & Mrs. Smith TV series etc) and Interpol Inspector Jamal Abbas (Arian Moayed - Succession TV series, You Hurt My Feelings etc).

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I am one of those guys who love treasure hunting films like National Treasure, Indiana Jones and so on. Hence when I read the premise of this movie, I was obviously interested to give it a try. The film started quite promising with some nicely executed action sequence in the busy streets of Bangkok and moved on to car chase in London. It was something that was enough to make me excited, especially with the two lead characters, siblings Luke and Charlotte whom I felt looked convincing as a couple of brother and sister with their squabbling.

Subsequently the effort to search for clues were done in a very simple way and not complicated (no thinking required at all). It's a bit like the "dumb" version of the more established franchise I said above. The story was pretty standard with no amazing twist for me (that supposedly shocking surprise towards the end did not have the desired effect). I thought the ending was not really satisfying either, particularly the part involving Inspector Abbas cause I believe it was a bit illogical. I also felt there was a lack of background story for Luke and Charlotte's father who was continuously mentioned. Perhaps having a brief scene involving him and those two in their younger days would be better to provide context.

The cast, especially Krasinski was charming and Portman's chemistry with him was OK to me, while the rest were quite mediocre. Aside from the names I mentioned, there were other support cast such as Daniel de Bourg as Charlotte's in-process of divorce husband Harold, Benjamin Chivers as their teenage son Thomas, the experienced Stanley Tucci (Citadel, Conclave etc) as the Elder and few others. I thought that Tucci's character was not too well written for an actor of his calibre. In general I think the writing was not the best factor here which was pretty surprising considering it was written by James Vanderbilt who wrote Scream VI, The Amazing Spider-man and plenty of other successful films. 

For me the directing was OK especially the action part. It was obvious Guy Ritchie (The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Wrath of Man etc) was given huge production budget (read somewhere that it was in the region of US$ 180 million) as the effects and cinematography look good. I also noticed during the closing credits that the shooting location were across three continents, i.e Thailand, Vienna, Egypt and England which would explain the expensive cost. The movie has a long duration of 125 minutes, but without any mid or post end credit. After finishing the film I did have strong feeling that it was probably better seeing it in the large screen with good sound system. 

Despite some of the good things like the action and the chemistry of the siblings, the "treasure hunting" part was not that great for me. I felt the background story was quite lacking and some of the characters were not interesting enough. It's no wonder that critics and some audience were not appreciative of this AppleTV+ original. So if you are interested in seeing the lead characters going across the globe looking for clues to one of the most famous treasure with plenty of actions and overly simplified hunt, then you could be entertained. But if you want better quality film of such genre, there are several that you could browse through the internet. I myself did have some nice time watching it, though I obviously felt it could have been better.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars