Forgotten Island Film Review: Too Much Energy

Forgotten Island looks great and aims for deep ideas, but its obnoxious characters, humor, and pacing reduce it to well-made brainrot from DreamWorks.

Once the friends begin the quest to get their key back home, the initial hooks of the movie – their actual history, their conflicting interests, the idea of forgoing memories to save themselves – basically go on pause for 40 minutes as they venture through the titular island and come across colorful characters like a giant baby, a merman with starfish nipples, and fungus warriors who hate being called cute. There are little stories tucked into these side quests, but they’re barely relevant, frequently obnoxious, and seemingly mainly exist to jingle keys in front of children’s faces.

Not to mention, they’re plowed through extremely quickly. Forgotten Island will never stop moving and let itself be quiet. Even before we reach the island itself, the entire movie rockets from moment to moment with the only proper transitions being overly exaggerated expressions and forced needle drops. Even basic reactions to what is happening suffer from the film’s hyperactivity. Aside from one solid sequence near the end, no actual emotions are allowed to linger for more than ten seconds before another flashy sequence begins. 

Even the best or most potentially inspired moments are over and done with before they can be taken in, making it that much harder to actually form a connection with anyone and softening the impact of the grand, heartfelt third act. Barely anything involving memories is tapped into beyond what you’d get in a lower-tier Pixar movie: very simplistic sentiments about how magical and precious they are, and what happens to you without them.

The girls’ identities aren’t altered as some memories go. We don’t explore how the were-dog’s memories have evolved despite him having lived on this island for such a long time. Some genuinely irresponsible behavior from one of the girls is initially addressed but then permanently brushed off when greater dangers take center stage. The main demonic villain of the movie is stated to have had memories of her own stolen from her, only for us to never even get a hint as to what these memories are, which could have really tied her story in cleverly with that of our leads.

There are some really creative, potentially jaw-dropping visuals in Forgotten Island, but they’re either rushed through or done dirty by the over-exaggerated animation. Going back to the villain, she looks great when just floating through the air. But during a chase in which she constantly looks like she’s being shot with a fish-eye lens, distorted and squashed and stretched, she looks silly more than anything. A lot of the film has this issue, compromising any sense of majesty, wonder, or fear because it’s trying too hard to look flashy and crazy.

I really did like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the previous DreamWorks film from director Joel Crawford, which shares stylistic similarities to this. But all its flourishes and eccentricities are much more carefully balanced with a story that unfolds naturally as it goes, characters with actual charm and even weight, pacing that lets them breathe more often, and visuals that know not to let the most extreme forms of goofiness take over. Forgotten Island learns all the wrong lessons and completely caves in on its own insanity, only coming somewhat close to anything greater with its resolution. It’s not a movie I’ll forget; I’ll give it that. I just wish I could remember it for the right reasons.

Forgotten Island is now available to watch on digital platforms.

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