In Review: ‘Forgotten Island’

Forgotten Island
Dir. Joel Crawford, Januel Mercado
108 min.

It might be too simple to credit one movie for reminding audiences that not every mainstream American animated movie has to follow the template that became the house style of Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, Illumination, and Blue Sky in the ’00s, but it’s been a pleasure to watch movies push beyond that style’s limits in the wake of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Which isn’t to say that terrific movies haven’t been made in the 3D animated mold that’s been the default look for animation since the ’00s. Plenty have and continue to be made. But for years, it was kind of a bummer to see a form with so many possibilities confine itself to limits set by other films. Co-directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, Forgotten Island’s pleasures include a habit of pretending those limits don’t exist in moments that break with the standard style via anime-like 2D segments, colors and images inspired by the film’s ’90s setting, and characters drawn from Philippine folklore of the sort not usually seen in big-budget animated features. (There’s not a three-eyed monster baby in Cars 2, is there?) 

For all its adventurousness, there’s a pretty familiar story at the heart of the film, which follows the friendship of Jo (voiced by H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano), who meet as girls growing up in the Philippines and become best friends despite their contrasting personalities. Jo’s a high-spirited academic underachiever who’s being raised by her grandmother Lola (Dolly de Leon), despite being told she’d be moving to America to live with her father. Raissa’s a committed student whose parents have high hopes for her future. But the two bond thanks to Jo’s wild imagination, which Lola feeds with stories of manananggals, tiyanaks and other strange creatures whom Lola says live on the island of Nakali. After Raissa gets accepted into Caltech and the friends prepare to go their separate ways, Jo feels like she’s being left behind. But the parting gets put off after they discover a magical sand dollar that takes them to Nakali.

It’s at this point that Forgotten Island unexpectedly takes the shape of a Hangover film. When they wake up on the beach, neither Jo nor Raissa can remember what happened the night before, so they retrace their steps to put it together with the help of a growing crew of oddballs. These include Raww (Dave Franco), a were-dog with the habit of going “full dog” in the presence of sticks; Bungi (Manny Jacincto) a giant, blue, mustachioed baby with strange powers and a desire to stay close to his mother; and Mermahn (Kevin McCann) who, as his name suggests, is a merman. Their journey takes them to diverse corners of Nakali and forces them to confront both some strange foes and the fragile state of their friendship.

Forgotten Island is colorful, fun, and, thanks to the care taken in depicting the protagonists’ friendship, quite moving. It’s also a little exhausting by the end. The downside to Crawford and Mercado’s seemingly bottomless inventiveness is that Forgotten Island doesn’t seem to know it needs to take a breath every once in a while. Still, that’s a small complaint for a film this entertaining and, for viewers (like me) who don’t know much about Philippine mythology, it’s educational, too. (Some cursory research reveals that not all batibats are as pleasant-looking as the cute-but-shady character voiced by Jenny Slate in the film. Yikes.) —Keith Phipps