Film Review of the Week

Animation

Forgotten Island (PG)

Review: Memories fade over time but if you could willingly trade your most precious recollections for money or rewards, what price tag would you put on those cherished chapters from your life? That’s the thorny dilemma facing the two chaotic heroines of an animated coming-of-age fantasy written and directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado. Set in 1990s Manila, Forgotten Island is a colour-saturated valentine to Philippine folklore and tradition cut from similar cloth to Coco’s love letter to Mexican culture and Encanto’s celebration of Colombia.

Authority-flouting free spirit Jo (voiced by H.E.R.) works at a fast-food chicken shop. She is mourning the death of her beloved grandmother, Lola (Dolly de Leon), who filled her head with stories about the mystical island of Nakali, home to vampiric fiend Manang (Lea Salonga), who can detach her body at the waist and reattach the two halves at will. No one believes Jo’s outlandish tales except for bookish best friend Raissa (Liza Soberano), who is about to leave home to study abroad at California Institute of Technology. On Raissa’s last night in Manila, the pals reminisce on the beach and a glowing token appears in the shoreline surf.

Jo is sucked into a magical portal to Nakali and Raissa tumbles after her. They regain consciousness on a beach with blurry recollections of the night before. Somehow, Raissa has inherited Manang’s wings. To find a way back home, Jo and Raissa team up with “cool weredog” Raww (Dave Franco) and rotund baby demon Bungi (Manny Jacinto) to track down agoraphobic witch Batiba (Jenny Slate). She can trade memories for a portal back to reality. En route, the marauding misfits tangle with an enraged Manang and discover their friendship is priceless.

Forgotten Island is a lively jaunt inspired by co-writer-director Mercado’s rich Filipino-American heritage. The script, co-written with Crawford, quickly sketches a deep bond between child and grandparent before old age deals a devastating blow. Once Jo and Raissa arrive in Nakali, characters replay the plot of The Hangover to woozily retrace their steps and learn where they might have left the portal key that can spirit them back home.

Frenetic visuals courtesy of armies of digital wizards at DreamWorks Animation mimic the stylistic flourishes of Jo’s comic books, replete with speech and thought bubbles. Brisk pacing leaves little room for meaningful introspection, choreographed to a nostalgic soundtrack laden with beloved 1980s tunes including Simple Minds’ Don’t You (Forget About Me), Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey and INXS’ power ballad Never Tear Us Apart. Mercado and Crawford’s polished picture dances merrily before the eyes and is charming and life-affirming in the moment. A few weeks from now, though, I doubt there will be any residue of Forgotten Island in my memory bank to trade with Batiba.

Action

Street Fighter (12A)

Review: Hollywood’s previous efforts to adapt the hugely popular Street Fighter video games into an action-packed live action film franchise have ended in toe-curling embarrassment, most notably in 1994 with Raul Julia camping it up as archvillain General M Bison opposite the unlikely pairing of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue. Japanese-American filmmaker Kitao Sakurai avoids past mistakes, choreographing a playfully irreverent martial arts fantasy that is both bruising and boisterous. The biggest surprise, however, is how this hyperkinetic orgy of stylised violence managed to secure a family-friendly 12A classification from censors.

In 1987 Thailand, master Gouken (Don Lee) prepares his two finest proteges, Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo), to battle for glory at the inaugural World Warrior Tournament. To secure victory in the final against Sagat, Ryu unlocks his inner darkness and awakens a diabolical deity, Akuma (Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i), which subsequently kills Gouken. Ken blames Ryu for their sensei’s murder and the brothers in arms become estranged.

Six years later, dictator M Bison (David Dastmalchian) designs a machine to extract the dark power from fighters and he organises a second World Warrior Tournament in the city of Metrolao to coax Ryu out of self-imposed exile. Bison’s lieutenant, Chun-Li (Callina Liang), who is secretly an undercover Interpol agent, invites a shortlist of eight warriors from around the world to participate in the competition including Ken and Ryu. Initially, Ryu refuses but when he learns that Ken will be competing, he brawls his way into contention against the likes of Balrog (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), Dhalsim (Vidyut Jammwal), Guile (Cody Rhodes), Joe (Alexander Volkanovski) and Vega (Orville Peck). Meanwhile, Ken confronts his insecurities with the support of trusted manager and best friend, Dan Hibiki (Andrew Schulz).

Street Fighter punches above lightweight expectations, realising flashbacks to Ken and Ryu’s past as dynamic hand-drawn animations that dovetail neatly with bombastic live action elements. Sakurai’s breathlessly paced direction pairs sweetly with a knockabout tone that pithily explains the bone-crushing bromance between Ken and Ryu with a single one-liner: “Male friendships are complicated”.

Koji willingly plays the straight man to Centineo’s preening peacock and both are well-served by a script co-written by Sakurai and TJ Fixman that allows the pair to communicate with fists as often as verbal putdowns. Dastmalchian purses his lips with delight as the Machiavellian ringmaster, who is momentarily distracted from his masterplan by Ken’s pecs and dashing good looks. Jason Momoa also makes a favourable impact as a pungent, green-skinned humanoid, who can generate electricity from his clawed hands. Perfunctory plot mechanics build to an inevitable grandstand final showdown that blatantly lays the groundwork for a sequel. It’s go time.

Thriller

Whalefall (15)

Review: Having a whale of a time takes on an entirely different meaning in Brian Duffield’s high-stakes underwater action thriller, jointly adapted by the filmmaker and author Daniel Kraus from the latter’s acclaimed 2023 novel. Actor Austin Abrams dons a wetsuit alongside Weapons co-star Josh Brolin to play an emotionally conflicted son and father, whose fractious relationship on land creates a devastating ripple effect during a terrifying battle for survival beneath the waves.

Jay Gardiner (Abrams) is estranged from his terminally ill father, Mitt (Brolin), and refuses to visit the old man before he passes. Mitt was a revered professional scuba diver and adopted a tough love approach to parenting Jay, who never felt like he could meet his father’s expectations. The grief-stricken Gardiners mark Mitt’s passing and Jay reunites with his mother Zara (Elisabeth Shue) and sisters Eva (Jane Levy) and Nan (Emily Rudd). “I’m gonna find him. That’s what I came back for,” the son quietly reminds himself and he prepares to dive for his father’s remains in a nearby bay.

There is a curious amount of activity involving police and lifeguards around the bay as Jay checks his equipment and plunges out of sight. In the quiet calm, he encounters a sperm whale chasing a giant squid and becomes entangled in one of the tentacles. Despite his best efforts to wriggle free, Jay is swallowed whole with the mollusc and must find an escape route back to the surface before his oxygen runs out.

Whalefall is a lean, expertly paced thriller that compels us to hold our breaths as Jay incurs multiple injuries in pursuit of freedom. Abrams is having a stellar year. Fresh from headlining the bravura reboot of the Resident Evil franchise, he anchors this hellish deep dive into intergenerational trauma with a fearless central performance, which must have required weeks of filming in unpleasant and challenging conditions. He’s on screen for prolonged stretches with just an angry squid or bioluminescent jellyfish for company.

If you’re happy to swallow the central premise then Kraus and Duffield’s script puts Jay through the physical and emotional wringer with sadistic glee. There’s grisly logic to most of the character’s actions and when he does finally heed Mitt’s words (“The prey becomes so dangerous, the predators can’t help but let them go…”) the resolution is hard-fought and earned. The dreamy soul-searching of the final stretch, where Jay seeks serenity through imagined conversations with his father and the whale, must work better on the page with each reader directing their imagination than the singular vision Duffield conjures on screen. For me, the film nearly capsized but Abrams’ unwavering commitment to punishing himself for his art ultimately prevails.