The Movie That Made My Nose Bleed
Fountain of Youth? More like Fountain of ... bad movies.
Yes, Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning came out last week, but neither of those movies made me bleed my own blood. If you’re looking for reviews of those theatrical releases, let’s do those quickly.
Lilo & Stitch: Bad, also evil
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning: Bad, then good
Now, let’s move on to what really matters, the nigh unwatchable Fountain of Youth starring John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Eiza González and what appears to be the most ChatGPT script to ever ChatGPT.
The Apple TV+ adventure/action movie, directed by the once-fun Guy Ritchie, is the latest (and one of the worst) examples of streaming trash, which is meant to be half-watched while doing laundry or cooking dinner or watching TikTok. It’s essentially if National Treasure and Indiana Jones had a deformed baby.
I may have mentioned this passage in a different post, but it feels appropriate after watching Fountain of Youth.
Such slipshod filmmaking works for the streaming model, since audiences at home are often barely paying attention. Several screenwriters who’ve worked for the streamer told me a common note from company executives is “have this character announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.” (“We spent a day together,” Lohan tells her lover, James, in Irish Wish. “I admit it was a beautiful day filled with dramatic vistas and romantic rain, but that doesn’t give you the right to question my life choices. Tomorrow I’m marrying Paul Kennedy.” “Fine,” he responds. “That will be the last you see of me because after this job is over I’m off to Bolivia to photograph an endangered tree lizard.”) -Casual Viewing
Reporter Will Tavlin goes on to call this “Tide Pod cinema,” but it can just as easily be called “Bloody Nose cinema,” as right when the movie ended, my nose started bleeding. If that’s not a negative reaction—my body was fighting what it just watched as if it were a parasite—I don’t know what is.
It’s not that John Krasinski doesn’t have the juice; it’s that no one has ever had less gravitas on screen in a big-budget movie. Every line is uttered with the enthusiasm of a middle schooler prepping for a math test, and every zippy one-liner falls flat in a way that only Ryan Reynolds could manage. Natalie Portman1 gets to play the put-upon sister who’s struggling to raise a child and trying to have it all. And Eiza González plays the ethnically ambiguous seductive woman who (for some reason) is obsessed with Krasinski.
I’m open to a fun globe-trotting scavenger hunt-esque caper, and yet, Fountain of Youth made me question if movies are even worth it. I just don’t see the point of making something like this and then dropping it on a streaming service to little to no fanfare. At this point, don’t make the movie and make a few extra iPhones. I guess they got me to give up 126 minutes of my time, so they win.
I think Krasinski has some chops as a director with the solid A Quiet Place and the whatever sequel, but you watch something like Michael Sarnoski’s A Quiet Place prequel (which is emotionally resonant and has real directing flair)2, and you then discover that maybe Krasinski had a good idea, and that’s it.
I don’t know how you can read this script with platitudes like “Life is an adventure” written on every other page and think working on this is how I want to spend my one life on earth. Here’s another back-and-forth that almost made me shut the movie off:
“Can you at least tell me where he was?”
“If I knew where he was, I assure you, you'd be the first to know, as he’s put me in a somewhat awkward position. I’m desperate neither for incarceration nor unemployment.”
“Well, allow me to assist. But if it later transpires that you’re being somewhat disingenuous…”
“Oh, I would not dare be mendacious with an official dressed in that houndstooth.”
Someone (or some AI program) wrote that and got paid for it. Actually, this gives me hope that I can write a script and get paid for it. Because if someone out there wants to produce something like Fountain of Youth, what wouldn’t they put money into?
In short, this movie has to be a pyramid scheme. I’m not entirely sure how, but rest assured, I’m willing to go on an undercover mission to find out what happened here. Because, as John Krasinski’s Luke Purdue (UGH) says, “Life is an adventure.”
Natalie Portman deserves better after giving one of 2023’s best performances in May December.
It doesn’t hurt that Lupita Nyong'o is criminally underused as an actor.