Forgotten Island

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★

Rated: PG

Written and Directed by: Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado

Produced by: Mark Swift

Starring: H.E.R., Liza Soberano, Dave Franco, Jenny Slate, Manny Jacinto, Dolly de Leon, Jo Koy, Ronny Chieng and Lea Salonga.

‘Don’t stop believing.’

When Jo (H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano) meet, it’s like-minds meeting in the same head space as the forgotten island, Nakali: ‘a place full of magic and wonder… and long forgotten by the mortal world’.

Jo’s Lola (Dolly de Leon) has been there.

Lola regales the two best friends with tales of the forgotten world shown with shadow paper puppet animation and hand-crafted dolls of the critters who live there, like the Batiba (Jenny Slate) and Bungi Tiyanak (Manny Jacinto).

As Jo and Raissa’s lives intertwine around their love and wonder of the mysterious world Nakali, their friendship grows, creating memories all collected and kept and worn on their friendship memory bracelets.

Until they finally get older, and Raissa tells Jo she’s going to Caltech and moving to America.

It’s time for Raissa to look towards the future.  Without Jo.

But on the final night before Raissa moves to America, a new world opens.  Not a new world, but a world they’ve been looking for their whole lives: Nakali.

Meet Raww (Dave Franco) and The Dreaded (vampire) Manananggal (Lea Salonga), as the two best friends navigate their way through an adventure they spend most of the time trying to remember.

Forgotten Island is an explosion of colour and constant dramatic builds to exclamations of excitement, rage, fear, adored cuteness, sadness and love, all amplified with extra two-dimensional animation of thought bubbles, or exclamation marks (to highlight the exclamation!) or 2D extra selves showing the extreme emotion.

It’s a lot.

But I got into the style at the beginning of the film.  And then the end.

The middle of the film introduced the Prince Mermahn (Kevin McCann) and Bungi, the man baby, that missed the mark for me.  The humour of star fish nipples and a crying demon child not my style of humour: more disconcerting than funny.

It’s not a LOL kind of movie.

Although, I did get a giggle out of the King Truffle Waffle (Ronny Chieng) trying to be scary and mean but really being cute and adorable.

There’s more focus on excessive emotion shown with attention to extreme style animation with under tones of living your best life with your best mate to keep those memories alive.

I actually got a bit teary because it was a nice change to see this celebration of female friendship.

Overall, Forgotten Island is a sensory overload that pulls itself out of too much silly by getting through a message of understanding the importance of holding onto memories by embracing those close – your best mate.