Forgotten Island is a dizzying, cotton-candy-colored, visually spectacular mash-up, a richly stylistic ganache poured over a sweet story about friendship, memory and how friends from different backgrounds lift each other up and help each other become who they are. The way it cleverly clashes animation styles together is reminiscent of the Spider-Verse films, and no animated movie since has been this visually provocative. And while it riffs on the anime-fueled popularity of KPop Demon Hunters, it’s very much its own thing: a Filipino-folklore fever dream that turns two best friends’ last night together into the most joyous, inventive animated adventure DreamWorks has made in years.
The story follows two Filipino girls, Raissa (Liza Soberano) and Jo (H.E.R.), who become best friends while waiting outside the principal’s office in elementary school. Their crime: an explosive in-class incident in which the rambunctious Jo describes, in gory detail, the secret island of Nakali and its fierce winged demon protector, the Manananggal. Raissa, ever the intellectual, comes to her defense by debating the logistics of the demon’s flight with their exasperated teacher. From there, the film tracks their growing friendship through the memories they make together, each one adding a new charm to their friendship bracelet.
[READ MORE: Our review of ‘Toy Story 5’ directed by Andrew Stanton and starring Tom Hanks]
The two counterbalance each other well. Raissa is hyperintelligent, calculated and destined for great things; Jo is a chaotic explosion of energy and creativity. But as college looms, Raissa looks to broaden her horizons with a move to America to attend Caltech, while Jo is stuck in neutral, employed as a chicken mascot for a food court diner, the only job she can get. Since they were kids, they’ve dreamed of visiting Nakali, where Jo’s grandmother, Lola, claimed to have gone as a young girl, and they swore that someday they’d make it there. This being a movie named Forgotten Island, on the night before Raissa leaves for college, the pair finally find their way to this magical land.
That world is populated by all types of creative madness: mogging mermen, frenetic weredogs, big blubbering 200-year-old babies with intact umbilical cords, adorable but ferocious little mushroom-marshmallow warriors, and demons of all different builds and predilections. Nakali is overflowing with life and lush with design flourishes. There’s more creativity in a single fingernail of this movie than in most films like it, and every corner feels populated and rich. The weredog Raww, voiced by Dave Franco in yet another beautiful display of him going full feral mode, serves as the girls’ island guide after they wake up the next day with no memory of the night before. What follows is basically The Hangover in a brightly colored animated world full of creatures and monsters, and it makes for some wildly funny and genuinely inspired moments.
The direction and animation from co-directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado are stunning. At times the film breaks out of new-era 3D animation into hand-drawn, comic-book-like panels; elsewhere there are explosions of manga expressionism that just burst their way onto the frame, indifferent to the collision of forms. As different versions of the previous night are retold from different characters’ points of view, each gets its own accompanying visual style, which makes the movie’s visual sense feel unique, detailed, and open to just about all possibilities.
For all that spectacle, the film is lashed to a heartwarming story about these two girls and what it means for a friendship to jump the line from friends to family. You could argue that Jo holds Raissa back with her lack of ambition, but she’s also there to champion her, hold her up, and encourage her to take risks. To take wing. To become the rocket she was destined to be. It speaks to the power of friendship, especially unconventional pairings, where maybe it’s not clear to the outside world why you hold someone as dearly as you do, but between the two of you, there’s magic.
The voice cast is great across the board, particularly H.E.R. and Liza Soberano as Jo and Raissa, and Dave Franco as Raww. All three handle the insane, eye-twitchy, cranked-to-11 mania as deftly as the effective emotional beats, which is no small feat in a movie that swings between the two emotions this hard and this often.
Just as refreshing is the way Forgotten Island folds its themes into a story centered on two young Filipina women, steeped in the folklore and textures of Filipino culture, without ever using that identity as a crutch or a didactic talking point. It’s simply the framework, and a richly interesting one. Mainstream animated movies rarely come from this perspective, and even more rarely from outside America, which makes it all the more welcome that this one wears its roots so naturally.
It’s also, at times, quite frightening. Little ones may be alarmed by the villainous Manananggal (Lea Salonga), a nightmare plucked straight from Filipino folklore, who rips herself in half and flies around like a demented hell-beast, her movements choppy and articulated in genuinely creepy ways (my four-year-old was certainly a bit spooked). But if you’re a brave little girl, you can probably peek through the fingers covering your eyes.
If there’s a knock against Forgotten Island, it’s that it’s almost too much of a good thing. The film never lets up, cranked to 11 from start to finish, and it operates on a manic, ADHD wavelength that can be exhausting. But that same relentless energy holds your attention taut the whole way through, and the way it visualizes friendship and memory is genuinely touching. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, and it’s among the very best animated movies of the decade.
CONCLUSION: A Day-Glo piñata stuffed with folklore, friendship and feelings, ‘Forgotten Island’ is DreamWorks firing on every creative cylinder at once. It’s exhausting in the best way, the kind of animated triumph that leaves you laughing, crying, and calling your oldest friend on the drive home. Pure cinematic Adderall.
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By: Matt Oakes
Started blogging about film in college when the university paper wouldn’t have him. Dislikes your consensus film Twitter favorites. Devotee of horror movies that make him die a little inside. Catches films at festivals when he can. Proud SFCS and OFCS member and Tomatometer-approved critic. Editor-in-chief of Silver Screen Riot.
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