Forgotten Island review – best friends forever trapped in frantic DreamWorks animation
This over-controlled adventure never takes a breath or a moment to let its characters come to life
Frantically and even stroboscopically over-energised, this big new movie from DreamWorks about best friends for ever seems to me another example of exhausting AI-type content production in animation. You could make the same argument against plenty of live-action films of course, but it is in animation that this kind of soulless blitzkrieg tends to predominate. Forgotten Island is over-controlled and over-determined, a movie that never, or hardly ever, takes its pedal from the metal, never takes a breath or a moment to let its characters come to life. At times it seems to be aping the world of Japanese anime, but without its sense of character or capacity for calm.
The story, weirdly reminiscent of The Hangover of all things, is set in the Philippines in the pre-social media 90s. Jo, voiced by R&B star HER, is a lonely and super-imaginative teen always in trouble at school; like Moana she has a wise grandma who guides her to her ancestral destiny and has captivated Jo with stories of her culture and identity – stories of the forgotten island of Nakali. Jo makes friends with similarly lonely Raissa (Liza Soberano) who like Jo is smart but with a much more focused sense of academic discipline.
Their alliance is pledged and a friendship bracelet woven, but as the years go by, poor Jo winds up with a loser’s job in a fast food joint, whereas Raissa feels guilty about leaving Jo behind as she heads for college at Caltech in the glamorous world of America. (The moment when she tells Jo she is leaving – effectively breaking up with her – is a rare moment of silence in which real emotions emerge and something is recognisably at stake.) But it is now that Jo discovers a mystical portal into the magical forgotten island of Nakali and semi-accidentally makes Raissa tumble down through this portal with her; they awaken 12 hours later to discover they have already done things here of which they have no memory and need to find out what. They also need to discover the portal which will take them back.
This Hangover-style amnesia facilitates a quest narrative, in the course of which they meet a goofy pal in the form of a wacky shapeshifting dog called Raww (Dave Franco) and a scary batibat, or memory demon, resembling Jabba the Hutt called Batiba (Jenny Slate) to whom they may have to surrender precious memories in return for freedom. They also encounter the terrifying figure of Manang (Lea Salonga) who, like Batiba may have relatable vulnerabilities that we don’t yet appreciate. And so it continues, developing and resolving with algorithmic efficiency. It leaves you with a strange sense of emptiness.
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