Making a good fantasy-adventure film is a lost art. The microgenre once fueled a lucrative cottage industry: half the major blockbusters in the 2000s were some kind of riff on Indiana Jones. Capable as they are of pleasing a crowd, however, the offerings we’ve received in the past few years just haven’t hit the same. Warner Bros’ Tomb Raider remake never made the waves it deserved, while Sony’s adaptation of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted games fell utterly flat. Not even Disney, the godfather of the genre, has managed to keep the magic alive. (2021’s Jungle Cruise, while admittedly entertaining, dried out on Disney+, and the less said of the messy Indy sequel Dial of Destiny, the better.)
It’s hard to keep rooting for an idea that feels less relevant by the day. If we’re being honest with ourselves, every possible version of this story has already been told. The well is dangerously close to running dry — but that doesn’t mean we can’t still wring a drop of entertainment from the remains. That’s exactly what Guy Ritchie sets out to prove with Fountain of Youth. The director is no stranger to a rehash, as he’s spent the past decade and change essentially making the same kind of crime caper in different fonts. That he’s finally stepping out of his comfort zone and into a new-ish frontier is one of the film’s major surprises; the other is just how much fun Ritchie seems to be having behind the camera.
