For all its dazzle and flair, it really doesn’t say anything at all.

Jo and Raissa have been best friends their whole lives. They do everything together. So when Raissa is going to leave the country, Jo is distraught. But before anything can happen, a magical portal throws them to the Forgotten Island. A magical land from childhood stories.

Written and directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish), Forgotten Island stars music artists-turn-actors H.E.R (The Colour Purple) and Liza Soberano (Lisa Frankenstein) as well as Dave Franco (Hoppers). This Dreamworks movie sports intense, kaleidoscopic visuals, world-bending and reality breaking ideas. The visual style alone is intriguing, with the sorts of animation seen in The Last Wish.

So does Forgotten Island stand-out or does it live up to its name?

The story follows Jo and Raissa, two Filipino girls who become rebellious friends at school. Jo (H.E.R) outgoing and raised with stories about magic and wonder, and Raissa (Soberano) very smart and enabled by Jo to come out of her shell. Jo is a creative firecracker who has a live-in-the-moment vibe, raised by her grandmother and stories of adventure. She is spontaneous and loud. Raissa, raised by family with defined values, excels at school and even gets a place at Caltech.
At the same time though, they discover a portal to an ancient, lost world. A world Jo’s grandmother visited in her youth. Going their might restore their fading friendship, or it might destroy everything they’ve ever had.

Forgotten Island has been largely ignored in the box office, but I was vehemently defending it on its trailer alone. We have incredible computer animation and visual flair. Somewhere between Spider-Verse and K-Pop Demon Hunters. There’s unique looking characters, not just the cookie-cutter Disney ones. It is an original IP, so written for cinema and not based on anything. A sprinkling of culture, as well as an intriguing premise of two friends losing their memories in a strange land.

So straight off the bat, there are good qualities here, you can tell. But… they ain’t for anything.

Positives first. Forgotten Island‘s opening act is setting up everything promised from the trailer. Two friends as close as sisters, one is flunking out, the other is excelling. Life threatening to pull them apart, with the loudest and happiest of the two being perhaps… the most vulnerable. There’s a lot of chemistry here, and a lot of fun sight-gags and reprising jokes. As well as some excellent comic book-esque graphical embellishments that improve the 3D animation underneath.
The rest of the movie is a dazzling display of colour, action sequences, incredible animation. There’s scary scenes, funny scenes, emotional scenes. Visual eye-candy that cuts wonderfully into a trailer. There’s a mad amount of pop-culture references in the music.

The titular Forgotten Island is creative and seemingly endless. The two friends are there for a twenty-four hour period but a lot happens. We have exotic marketplaces, spooky mountains, mushroom people, mermen, giant birds, fairies. It just goes on and on. It is all very stylish.

But it isn’t very substantial.
When the credits roll, you’ll think back on the adventure the two girls have taken. What they’ve learned from it all. And realise… not a whole lot. Their lives are largely unaffected by the whole experience, and their time on the Forgotten Island is largely filler episode.

That’s not to say things don’t happen. On the contrary; too much happens. Almost immediately upon entering the portal, the film wakes our heroes up with twelve hours forgotten. This amnesia is slowly explained throughout the course of the movie. This also gives the writers carte blanche to do whatever they want. Plus, instead of cool little vignettes that explore this new world, it is a snowballing screenplay that cannot let go of any character introduced. More-and-more characters, who have less-and-less agency, added for the blind sake of adding them.

These excessive additions suck run time away for no reason. They add nothing to the central chemistry between Jo and Raissa. They are just cinematic keys jangling in front of our faces. Which is (in my mind) a sign of a lack of confidence. Or studio interference. Yes, we have another Elio on our hands.
A story about a friendship nearing its end, and their memories being wiped out, all on a magical, fun island… It should have made me feel something. It didn’t. Even at the climax, sure I felt a little bit, but not even one tear. It feels like the writers should have taken more notes from Alice in Wonderland or Wizard of Oz. The themes needed to be stronger. There needed to be less key jangling.

This movie’s style is, overall, one of “lol so random”. Which wasn’t what I was expecting from the trailer. It just does things. Granted, most of those things are quite flashy and fun. It did make me laugh at times. Visuals were pretty and the insane facial animations and comic-style embellishments were awesome. But it was remarkably shallow when it was all said and done. I hate saying it, it evokes slippage into “only known properties get any attention”. “No one wants original content any more.” “This isn’t Shrek 6,” or whatever.

It is original, and it is flashy. I recommend you watch it on rental or streaming. The cinemas a packed with movies this month, and unfortunately this ain’t the one (and I say that without having seen the others yet)

Additional Marshmallows: It is a great trailer. But it also lies about characters and their motivations.