Producer: Mark Swift Directors: Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado Screenplay: Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado Cast: H.E.R., Liza Soberano, Dave Franco, Jenny Slate, Manny Jacinto, Dolly de Leon, Jo Koy, Ronny Ching, Lea Salonga, Kailey Crawford, Kayla Teruel, Nico Santos, Amielynn Abellera and Januel Mercado Distributor: Universal
Grade: C+
Nice messages about the importance of friendships and memories are undermined by hyperkinetically spectacular animation and a strident soundtrack in “Forgotten Island,” which employs Filipino folklore in describing how the bond between two BFFs is tested by an adventure in a land filled with oddities and dangers.
The story begins in Manila around 2000, with over-rambunctious urchin Jo (voiced by Kailey Crawford) regaling her elementary school class with terrifying stories about the mythic island of Nakali told her by her exuberant grandmother Lola (Dolly de Leon), who claims to having visited the place by passing through a magical portal years ago. When an obnoxious classmate derides her presentation, Jo attacks him, leading the exasperated teacher to shut down her talk and send her to the principal’s office.
There she’s joined by Raissa (Kayla Teruel), a shy, bookish girl who’d spoken up on her behalf. The two immediately decide to become best friends, and make a pledge by exchanging charm bracelets to which they’ll add items over the years as Raissa spends a lot of time with Jo and Lola hearing about Nakali and supporting one another through times of joy and sadness (like Lola’s funeral).
Years later, Jo (now voiced by H.E.R.) is making a mess of her life, going through a succession of jobs that end with her wearing a fowl outfit as a delivery person for a chicken take-out place. In that disguise she barges into the big graduation party her parents (Amielynn Abellera and Januel Mercado) are hosting for Raissa (now Liza Soberano), where Jo’s disheartened to learn that her pal will be going off to college at Caltech, just another person (like her parents and Lola) to abandon her.
Nonetheless she convinces Raissa, despite her mother’s objections, to join her for one last night of frolic at the wreck of a jeep they’d left on the beach years before. There Jo suggests they add one final charm to their bracelets—a firecracker. Raissa refuses. But when Jo discovers a sand dollar that transforms into a portal to Nakali (Lola had always said no one can find the portal, but it will find you), she persuades Raissa to follow her into it.
They awaken twelve hours later with no memory of the previous night and Raissa, whose plane will be leaving for the States later in the day, anxious to find the way home. But there are problems: not only is the portal gone, but Raissa now has wings, though no idea how she got them. In a plot that becomes far too complicated for its own good, with so many colorful characters angling for attention that many of them barely register, they first meet Raww (Dave Franco), a were-dog that can’t control his abrupt transformations but insists that the three of them enjoyed a wacky night together. He informs them that the wings Raissa is wearing belong to Manang the Manananggal (Lea Salonga), a ferocious demon that shows up to prove that she wants them back.
From this point Raww leads the duo, though not always in a trustworthy fashion, on a quest to find their way home. Like Dorothy, they encounter plenty of strange characters on the way. First comes Batiba (Jenny Slate), a giant, soft-spoken agoraphobic cat who selfishly collects the memories of others in her cave and offers to get the girls back to Manila in exchange for their bracelets. They refuse, and instead go with Raww to search for the portal.
What follows is a riot of episodes involving a variety of figures from Filipino myth. There’s a tiyanak—a creature disguised as a giant blue baby—named Bungi (Manny Jacinto). And a turquoise sea creature named Prince Mermahn (Kevin McCann), who wears singing starfish (Nico Santos) on his nipples. And Truffle Wuffle (Ronny Chieng), the imperious king of the tiny Duwende tribe, and Datu (Jo Koy), the hospitable king of the giant Kapre. There’s also a gigantic bird that ferries Jo, Raissa and their crew of the moment around from place to place.
There are myriad complications in the plot writer-directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado have contrived, impelled in large measure by the disingenuousness of many of the mythical characters, who are quite ready to lie when it suits their purposes (and even when it doesn’t). Suffice it to say that Jo and Raissa get into a disagreement that threatens to sunder the friendship they’d promised would last forever, but both give themselves over to self-sacrificial decisions to help each other when push comes to shove.
Their predictable reconciliation arc is coupled with redemption turns for some of the other characters, who find that memories—whether recovered or newly minted—possess a powerful, and positive, effect. Batina and Manang are the primary beneficiaries, winding up much nicer figures than they’d started out as; but others profit as well.
And, of course, the movie ends with an upbeat coda, set in the present, in which Jo visits Raissa at Caltech, both young women now successful in their different fields and as adventurous as ever.
Crawford and Mercado, along with editor Ryan Carlson, push the convoluted narrative of “Forgotten Island” forward at a breathless pace, which too often leaves one struggling to understand precisely what’s going on.
But whether you’re slightly confused or not, the movie is blazingly colorful, even if the visuals by DreamWorks Animation—which sometimes abruptly switch from 3D computer renderings to flat anime-inflected images at moments of emotional stress—are so fast-moving that they can degenerate into a blur. You have to give Ryan Carlson’s production design credit for imagination, though.
The extremely loud sound level, moreover, makes for a very noisy complement to the exaggerated look. Some of the voice performers—Crawford, H.E.R., Salonga, Franco and a few others—pretty much shout their dialogue unremittingly, so that one looks forward the soft purr Slate or Koy provides. Nathan Matthew David’s score, to which are added lots of needle drops or hip-hop-sounding musical numbers, is similarly ear-splitting.
It’s possible that young kids, who have grown up on the sort of animated freneticism in which “Island” traffics, will appreciate the movie more than grownups, who probably prefer something a mite more sedate. But it’s unquestionable that the picture has been made with affection for the Filipino milieu, and a desire to give the story of friendship set within it, an abundance of heart, and that the actors give it their all.
And there are touches anybody can respond to, like a gag near the close involving what might be thought of as a Trojan Chicken presided over by King Truffle Wuffle. When “The Odyssey” is still fresh in people’s memories, it comes across as a particularly nifty gibe.