FORGOTTEN ISLAND Review

The newest movie from DreamWorks Animation, Forgotten Island, explores the power of friendship and memories. When Jo and Raissa, best friends through their school years, are about to split apart and live in different countries, they finally find the portal to the island of Nakali, a mythical forgotten island they've been trying to find their entire childhood. After losing their memories of their first night there, their friendship is tested as they figure out how to get home.

The voice cast is stellar. H.E.R. as Jo and Liza Soberano as Raissa bring life to our two main protagonists, selling the enthusiasm of Jo and the more level headed nature of Raissa. The voice actors for their younger years, Kailey Crawford and Kayla Teruel as young Jo and Raissa respectively, set that precedent with the same type of young charm. Yet, it's the supporting cast around them, the creatures from Nakali, that stand out the most.

Jenny Slate does some of her best voice work as Batiba, a tree-dwelling creature that exchanges memories for other memories, keeping the memories people give her. Manny Jacinto is hilarious as Bungi, a Tiyanak baby demon whose never been on his own. Dave Franco helps make Raww, a weredog, one of the more nuanced characters with one of the better story arcs. The voice acting sells the movie even in parts where the writing lets it down.

The variation in animation style is also a highlight. Moments when we switch into a completely different look, typically done when a character is telling a story, are some of the more visually interesting moments as they contrast the rest of the movie. The style used for the main parts of the movie is also very eye catching. It makes the whole world around these characters pop in a visually exciting way.

Unfortunately, the voice cast and animation style do their best to make up for an overly familiar, lackluster story, and it's not quite enough.

The power of friendship being tested is a very common theme that has been explored many times. The friends grow up, their school years end, they go to different colleges or career paths. It's very common in life, so it's very common in movies.

Forgotten Island starts out by showing us the day Jo and Raissa meet, connecting over the tales of the forgotten island and creatures they both believe in. It's a cute first interaction, followed by a montage of their friendship continuing for many years, with brief glimpses of their most important memories. For a movie that relies so heavily on the power of memories, this montage is way too quick, and those glimpses way too brief. We don't get the chance to be connected to these memories they might lose, and still barely know them by the time their friendship might break up. The stakes feel lower when there's that disconnect.

Nakali and the creatures on it also felt underexplained. Exposition is given at the beginning through a class presentation from Jo, but otherwise a lot of the lore felt underbaked, not exploring true character motivations until the end.

Outside of those aspects, the movie ultimately feels overly familiar. The problems the friends are going through with personality clashes and different life goals have been explored, fantasy lands with creatures have been explored, the power of memories and how they're a part of us has been explored, and none of it is explored through a lens that felt fresh nor improved upon.

As much as the movie wanted to pull me in with its visual style and great voice cast, I just felt unengaged and underwhelmed. There's a lot to like here, but there's also plenty you can find somewhere else, with more to say.

🍿SCORE = 50 / 100