The experience of watching “Forgotten Island” is a bit like pounding energy drinks for two hours — you’re exceedingly buzzed and questioning if you needed that eleventh Red Bull.
Directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado have put so much into their animated feature that at times it feels like it’s going to explode off the screen, stuffed with a variety of influences and ideas. The animation reflects that ambition, with an eye-popping combination of color and styles, drawing heavily from anime but with the level of detail that a major studio like DreamWorks Animation can afford. And yet the film is not all sound and fury, with a solid story of friendship at its center combined with a wicked sense of irreverent humor.
At times, it can almost be too much, like being the third wheel with two best friends who speak primarily in inside jokes. But for the most part, you love being wrapped up in their singular world even if you’re a bit exhausted when the night’s over.
Jo (H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano) have been friends since they were kids after the brainy Raissa came to the defense of the imaginative Jo, who was sharing her story about the forgotten island of Nakali as a piece of family history. Jo’s grandmother, Lola (Dolly de Leon), told them of Nakali and its strange inhabitants, and as kids, Jo and Raissa resolved to find the island themselves. Now that they’re on the verge of graduating high school, Raissa is about to leave the Philippines for Caltech while Jo, mourning the loss of Lola, now feels like she’ll be totally alone.
On the night of graduation, Jo and Raissa go down to the beach to party, only to awaken in Nakali with no memory of the night before. Guided by Raww (Dave Franco), a were-dog who has trouble controlling his level of transformation, the pals must reconstruct the previous night if they want to get home, but their adventure reveals how much their personal journeys are about to diverge.
While the plot device of “The Hangover” is an obvious touchstone, Crawford and Mercado take a kitchen sink approach, blending so many influences together ranging from the weirdo friendship beach trip of “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” to the importance of memory and identity that formed the backbone of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” And then there’s the clear anime imprint on the art style combined with a heavy dose of Filipino mythology to make up the diverse cast of supporting characters and the various realms of Nakali. It’s almost like the directors saw the level of personal influence in a movie like “Turning Red,” especially as it relates to teen girl friendships, and rather than follow Pixar’s mandate of fewer “autobiographical stories,” they went in the opposite direction and cranked the level of “personal” until the knob broke off.
Thankfully, this never plays as esoteric as “Forgotten Island” is always gorgeous and frequently hilarious. In terms of sheer craft, we can see how Crawford and Mercado resolved to take the vibrant animation of their previous feature, “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” and push even further, providing “Forgotten Island” with a level of kineticism that’s rarely glimpsed in mainstream U.S. animation outside the “Spider-Verse” movies.
There are moments when that vibrancy can be like looking directly into the sun — so many scenes go for dynamic visuals that it’s hard to find a baseline. The filmmakers are understandably trying to capture the energy in Jo and Raissa’s friendship and show the distinctiveness of Nakali, but there were times when it felt like my brain was so overstimulated that it needed a bit of a rest.
Even though you can see the arc of the movie based on other friendship-adventure tales, that doesn’t detract from how endearing and just plain weird so many of the characters can be, from Raww’s dog-like behavior to Bungi (Manny Jacinto), a 200-year-old baby demon with mommy issues, to a vainglorious Merman (Kevin McCann), and a giant kitty-cat demon (Jenny Slate) whose agoraphobia causes her to live vicariously through the memories of others. Oh, and there’s also a tribe of adorable but violent creatures akin to the Kakamora from “Moana.”
And yet, despite these familiar angles, undergirding it with Filipino mythology gives “Forgotten Island” a distinctive flavor. I wanted to learn more about the Philippines and Filipino culture.
This crash of the familiar with the unique can make for an awkward balance. At times, “Forgotten Island” can feel like a collection of references, and at others it’s taking all those recognizable markers and remixing them into something new. And while the ethos of the movie is to embrace the mess and chaos of these two characters, there are moments when coming up for air would have served the bigger, more explosive scenes by contrasting them against the softer moments.
While CGI animation itself feels like an expression of Jo’s storytelling with Raissa’s technical knowledge, “Forgotten Island” is more of a piece with the former’s aggressive, effervescent personality. But like Jo, the film is also sweet, endearing, and too interesting to ignore. You may just need some quiet time afterwards.
“Forgotten Island” opens exclusively in theaters on Sept. 25.
