Written by Sam Clark 

Certificate: 12A

Running time: 125 minutes 

Director: Guy Ritchie 

When any film joins a genre that is already filled with cherished and beloved classics (or, in this case, just better films in general), you have to make sure you stand out from the rest and bring something new to the table. If not, you just end up spending the entire duration wondering why they have even bothered and boredom, eventually, begins to creep in. When I first saw the trailer for ''Fountain of Youth'', that exact thought crossed my mind: the fact that this looked like every single treasure hunting romp I have seen before. When i actually came round to watching it, before no time at all, alarm bells instantly started going off in my head as my worst fears were becoming a reality. 

From director Guy Ritchie, the name responsible for creating what we now know as the ''British geezer'' gangster flicks , the story here follows John Krasinski stars as ''Luke Purdue''. To best summarize his character, I would say he's a mashup of ''Indiana Jones'' and ''Nathan Drake'' and is certainly dressed as the latter (a double edged sword as well - aside from acting like them anyway, he dresses like them too, so there is nothing original here at all). We meet him at the start of the film stealing a painting in Thailand and evading bad guys, only just escaping with his life, and soon after arrives in London to recruit his estranged sister ''Charlotte'' (Natalie Portman). She is a museum curator, and their father was an archeologist and adventurer of sorts and so, unsurprisingly, the two grew up with an appetite for adventure (as they constantly and annoyingly allude to throughout the course of the film). 

Photo credit: IMDb / Apple TV / Skydance 

''Luke'' shows up at her museum and tries to convince her to join him on a quest to find the fountain of youth, an expedition that is being funded by a dying billionaire called ''Owen Carver'' (Domhnall Gleeson), who seeks to use the fountain as a cure - other members of the team include Laz Alonso (''Mother's Milk'' from ''The Boys'') and Carmen Ejogo. Hot on their trail is the villainous ''Esme'' (Eiza Gonzalez), who is part of an organization attempting to hide the fountain from the world, as well as interpol agent Arian Moayed who is trying to arrest them. So, since we already have the likes of ''Indiana Jones'' (of course the highest water mark for this kind of stuff), ''Romancing the Stone'', two treasure hunting video-game adaptations in the form of three ''Tomb Raider'' films and now, only just recently, ''Uncharted'' (starring a pretty miscast Tom Holland as ''Nathan Drake'' in my opinion), ''Fountain of Youth'' pales so poorly in comparison -  as I sadly knew it would. This simply does nowhere near enough to stand up on it's own two feet. The latter aren't perfect in their own right either, but still far more entertaining. This just proved to be completely empty. 

I'm a big fan of Krasinski, I think he is a very watchable, enjoyable, funny screen presence. The US version of ''The Office'' is one of my favourite TV shows of all time and he has more than demonstrated he can do comedy. For my money, he is the only saving grace here. He does the cocky, rebellious and flirty hunter character rather well and is perfectly serviceable, but, as was previously mentioned, he's just doing characters we already know. Despite his likeable and funny nature, he is still underdeveloped here, along with everyone else anyway. Both Laz Alonso and Carmen Ejogo's characters could have been removed entirely and I don't like to say that, considering their characters still do their part in the quest. They have virtually nothing to do all film aside from a few lines every now and then.

They just linger in the background and that's it. Eiza Gonzalez is every villain you've seen in these types of films and nothing more. A trope I am beyond tired of seeing by now is how every time our heroes discover a new clue or new location, they show up randomly of out nowhere and ''by surprise'', every-single-time. Yeah, I only wish we were surprised too. ''Fountain of Youth'' was always going to have a battle on its hands, to try and do something new and do something different, and unsurprisingly loses it in the end. Just stick to the alternatives I have already mentioned. Hopefully, one will come along again that is worth far more of your time. 

Available on Apple TV now