Frantically and even stroboscopically over-energised, this big new movie from DreamWorks about best friends for ever seems to me another example of exhausting AI-type content production in animation. You could make the same argument against plenty of live-action films of course, but it is in animation that this kind of soulless blitzkrieg tends to predominate. Forgotten Island is over-controlled and over-determined, a movie that never, or hardly ever, takes its pedal from the metal, never takes a breath or a moment to let its characters come to life. At times it seems to be aping the world of Japanese anime, but without its sense of character or capacity for calm.
The story, weirdly reminiscent of The Hangover of all things, is set in the Philippines in the pre-social media 90s. Jo, voiced by R&B star HER, is a lonely and super-imaginative teen always in trouble at school; like Moana she has a wise grandma who guides her to her ancestral destiny and has captivated Jo with stories of her culture and identity – stories of the forgotten island of Nakali. Jo makes friends with similarly lonely Raissa (Liza Soberano) who like Jo is smart but with a much more focused sense of academic discipline.
