Far from home: Two besties look for clues in ‘Forgotten Island’.
FORGOTTEN ISLAND **** (109 minutes) PG
To glazzies fatigued by sequels, remakes, reboots and what-not, Forgotten Island hits like a delightful, invigorating splash of cool water.
Easily of one the best animated family films of the past five years, this offering from DreamWorks delivers a great adventure, spirited characterisations, a distinctive anime-inspired visual style and lots of laughs.
Best of all is its story-strong narrative about best friends Raissa (Liza Soberano) and Jo (Gabi Wilson aka H.E.R.) who, on the eve of their post-graduation separation, fall through one of those space/time portals that have long been a movie fixture and find themselves on an island in an alt-realm.
In their quest to get back home, mostly so Raissa can catch her flight that will take her from her home in the Philippines to her California university – and away from Jo – they must chase down a succession of wild and whacky characters to locate the key to the portal.
Their encounters with a big-mouthed, memory-collecting demon, a narcissistic merman (a big laugh generator) and a tribe of diminutive, aggressive warriors who happen to be adorably cute – 10/10 for comic creativity here – all hook into the overarching themes of friendship and memory.
Though it moves for much of its duration at a frenetic clip, the last stretch noticeably shifts tone to ground the film emotionally and provide a dramatic counter to all the preceding mayhem, much of which turns out to be beautifully disguised foreshadowing.
It’s testament to just how fully-formed the story by writer/directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercad is, a quality blessed by the terrific yin-yang characterisation of long-sighted, level-headed Raissa and Jo, who is something of a hellraiser with limited forward vision.
As delicious as the film is on a first viewing, the opportunity to see it a second time only deepens one’s appreciation for the detail and artistry that has gone into the look and story.
In particular, it’s telling how the yarn in set in the time of analog when mixtapes, ghetto blasters and instant cameras ruled the earth. Yet more proof – not that any more was needed – that this tech is far more cinematically attractive than digital devices and smart gizmos.
And a special treat awaits those who sit through the final credit scroll as a smattering of selfie-style photos show stuff that wasn’t in the film.
It’s a measure of just how good this film is. And it’s an original work – something you don’t get to say often nowadays. Expect it to pop up at Oscar time.
Enjoy.
RESIDENT EVIL **** (90 minutes) MA
Huzzah! What a ridiculously super-terrific, splendidly directed motion picture this extra-juicy serving of post-apocalyptic chaos turns out to be.
A reboot of the Resident Evil film franchise – actually, it’s the second attempt after the flop of 2021’s Welcome to Raccoon City – and based on the Japanese video game, the film is steered and co-tapped (with Shay Hatten) by Zach Cregger, who gave us Barbarian and the ripper Stephen Kingesque horror-mystery Weapons.
Now before we go any further it is very important to stress that anyone expecting the film to feature a version of the eminently capable, pulchritudinous Milla Jovovich, who starred in the six founding RE films that went on to make a handy $1.3b, need to manage their expectations.
Instead of a gutsy heroine who knows her way around an automatic weapon our lead here is quite the opposite.
Bryan (Austin Abrams) is a bumbling medical courier who, while making an urgent delivery one snowy winter’s night, finds himself caught up in the very early stages of civilisation’s collapse.
In an exemplary demonstration of scene setting, the first part of the film is a slow reveal of the developing catastrophe totally seen from our hapless hero’s perspective.
It’s totally captivating and highly cinematic as Cregger relishes using the Imax frame to dial up the tension and, ultimately, the scares.
And the soiree is funny as all get-out as Bryan not only tries getting his head around what’s happening but has to deal with locks, monsters and how guns work. And while much of it plays as straight out comedy it all helps build story.
Inevitably there is plenty of mandatory blood splatter during the man-vs-critter action though it mainly involves lashings of ooze and slime rather than outright gore.
All credit to the film’s design team for the mutated, multi-limbed creatures that cartwheel around ingesting the frightened humans. Ugly as these para-zombies are obviously meant to be there is, nonetheless, a strange beauty to them. One wonders what Hieronymus Bosch would have made of them.
As to whether you need to know Thing One about the video game to enjoy this or any RE film, the answer is, of course, no.
Cregger clearly respects the game and its legion of gamers yet he knew that for the film to succeed it needed to appeal to a much broader horror movie fanbase.
This is why the film’s poster boasts “From the director of Weapons and Barbarian” rather than “Based on the Playstation game”.
Such an approach is always the case with any sort of adaptation. A prime example is the Lord of the Rings movies.
When director Peter Jackson was asked directly (by yours truly) how much of the projected audience would be composed of dedicated Tolkien fans he said about five percent.
The exact same principle applied to the Harry Potter films. As phenomenally successful as the books were, the readers were not, and could not, be the target audience.
Though author JK Rowling insisted on certain qualities so the films were in keeping with the character of her story – such as having this ginormous American production anchored by a totally British cast (a major deal) – she knew the books needed to be reshaped for cinema.
COYOTE VS ACME ***1/2 (98 minutes) PG
He gave us Misery, All the President’s Men, The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, yet William Goldman’s greatest piece of writing might well be his all-encompassing quip from his 1983 memoir Adventures in the Screen Trade: “Nobody knows anything”.
This was his wily summation of how the movie business works, especially when it comes to forward thinking.
The classic quote neatly brings us to the curious case of Coyote vs Acme, a witty, wonderful, wonderfully funny live-action/animation lark that starts out silly but delivers a surprisingly punchy final reel.
Upon completion, the film was deemed by Warner Bros to be worth more as a tax write off than as a crowd-pleasing slice of family entertainment and so was removed from its release schedule.
Long story short, industry-based protests and an online campaign saw the rights to the film sold, thus securing a popular release to big audiences that weren’t supposed to exist.
Based on a New Yorker humour piece, we see Wile E Coyote from the classic Road Runner cartoons – part of Warner’s Looney Tunes legendary cartoon canon – sue Acme for all the malfunctioning products he used in his ill-fated quest to capture the velocious bird.
Remaining speechless the entire time – a very wise decision – the Coyote teams up with a low-level lawyer (Will Forte) to take on the might of the megalithic manufacturing corporation.
Replete with Looney Tunes characters who range from single-scene cameos to supporting roles, the film is a wall-to-wall delight with plenty of signature visual gaggery.
What really sells the shebang, though, is how it all comes together so cleverly in a great example of how even heightened fantasy films with crazy plot lines must, ultimately, adhere to an internal logic that makes sense of its world.
Indeed, the film addresses the key question of how it Acme could be a successful company if all the products the Coyote used were so faulty.
And as we saw in The Sheep Detectives, however bizarre a film’s premise might be we need characters and relationships to actually care about if the bedlam is to have any meaning.
Thus we are give some surprisingly effective character arcs here along with an absolutely fabulous payoff that just might qualify Coyote vs Acme as the most meta movie ever.
THE WEIGHT ***1/2 (112 minutes) MA
Not that we needed another, especially after his sterling performance in Blue Moon, but here we have a potent reminder of how versatile and convincing an actor Ethan Hawke can be, especially when operating outside his cool-dude comfort zone.
In The Weight Hawke plays Samuel, a down-on-his-luck Depression-era single father who is separated from his little daughter when unfairly thrown into prison and set to work smashing rocks.
Sustained by his dire need to reconnect with his daughter (Avy Berry; very good), whose impending adoption predates his scheduled release, he falls under the good graces of his gruff but humane overseer Clancy (Russell Crowe, tops as usual).
Winning the warden’s sympathies with his talent for mechanical repairs and lateral thinking, Samuel is offered early release in exchange for a special service – to lead a group of fellow cons through the woods to deliver a load of illegal gold.
He is promised a hard journey and he gets it as the group, accompanied by two armed guards of questionable character, traipse across an uneven, decidedly hostile landscape.
A very tense, gritty period thriller buoyed by Hawke’s strong central turn.
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