Compared to your Pixars, your Ghiblis, your Sonys, your Laikas or your Cartoon Saloons, DreamWorks Animation sometimes seems like a studio built on franchises of diminishing returns. For every Orion And The Dark, there is a Boss Baby; for every The Bad Guys, there is a Trolls: World Tour.
Which is what makes Forgotten Island such an unexpected treat: another example of how the animation industry is in such rude health, each rival studio pushing the other to greater heights. It is a sugar-rush of a film, full of ideas and fizzing with imagination — boasting the cultural specificity of Moana, the bittersweet memories of Coco and the chaotic anime flourishes of One Piece.
This is a film very much of its time and place — that time and place being the Philippines in the 1990s — and a film squarely about teenage female friendship, a subject that still feels like an odd rarity for such a common experience. Jo (voiced by Filipina-American pop star H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano) meet as young children, finding solidarity in being outsiders, both sent to the principal's office. A moving montage set to INXS's ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ — a needle drop most memorably used in the Director’s Cut of indie darling Donnie Darko — is the first hint that what we are watching might not be the usual franchise-building fare.
We then jump to a few years in the future, where teenage Jo and Raissa are making plans beyond high school, and it seems that said plans for the first time might not align. Just as this conflict threatens to torpedo their friendship, they stumble across a mysterious portal which appears to confirm the folklore of the world of Nakali, as relayed to them by Jo’s grandma, Fatima, as true.
Interestingly, the pair wake up the morning after their arrival, as Nakali does funny things to the memory, it turns out, and so they emerge a little like the bros of The Hangover, slowly trying to piece together the madcap events of their first evening in this strange realm. Why does Raissa suddenly have wings? Why is a were-dog named Raww (Dave Franco) claiming to be their best friend? And why is a torso-detaching demon, a “manananggal” known as Manang (Lea Salonga), trying to kill them?
This memory element weaves into the story with more emotional punch than you might expect, leaning on the kind of bittersweet themes explored in the likes of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. What is most impressive about this is the juggling of tones: directors Joel Crawford (who was also behind the unexpectedly excellent Puss In Boots: The Last Wish) and Januel Mercado wring huge pathos from this thread, the complicated friendship the pair have and the tension of their future plans as a whole life stretches before them.
But this is also simultaneously a hugely funny and frequently bizarre film. The animation is full of saturated colour and popping with life, both in the real world of the film and the heightened fantasy of the Island. In common with a lot of recent mainstream Hollywood animated efforts, there are some neat anime tropes, from exaggerated eye effects to 2D thought bubbles, which feel inventive and fun and a reflection of the characters and their scatty teenage brains. And the imaginative design and performances really tips it over the edge — shout-out especially to Manny Jacinto as a three-eyed demon baby who is both adorable and terrifying, and Kevin McCann as Mermahn, an absurd Aquaman knock-off with singing starfish for nipples.
There are plenty of times where you can feel the story strictly tied to the railroad of formula and cliché, and the ending might prove a little too earnest for a film which also features singing starfish nipples. But this is overall a very strong entry for DreamWorks Animation’s 50th feature, full of pep and heart and fun.