Forgotten Island (2026)

Forgotten Island (2026)

6/10

Starring the voice of 

H.E.R.

Liza Soberano

Dave Franco

Jenny Slate

Directed by Joel Crawford

 

Forgotten Island's setup earns the eliché, but the finale doesn't earn its cost, you see I enjoyed Forgotten Island, this new animated work from Dreamworks. The all-female leads, the animation with that anime-like flow to it, the whole thing is easy to watch and easier to like.

The opening earns its reputation as the standard predictable friendship journey. One girl heading out to become an adult, one refusing to grow up. In the Philippines in the 1990s, Jo is obsessed with the forgotten island of Nakali and the dreaded Manananggal, stories her grandmother Lola tells about her own travels there. Raissa, a classmate who once defended Jo, becomes her best friend, and their bond deepens over years of those same stories. When Raissa is set to leave for America, the two girls go out for one last night together and get pulled into the island itself.

That's where the film takes its structure straight from The Hangover. Jo and Raissa wake up on Nakali with twelve hours gone and no memory of what happened, piecing the night back together while a clock runs out on them. The reveal lands well. Everything circles back to Batiba, a bargaining cat who's been trading memories for passage the whole time.

Jo and Raissa's chemistry carries the film and the voice cast sells it, you believe these two have been best friends their whole lives before the plot even asks you to.

But the opening plays the same friendship tune every one of these movies plays, predictable from minute one.

Then, mid-film, the gut punch as Raissa finds out that Jo is hiding something from her, something Jo could not remember until their memory was getting restored.

That one thing changed the tone of this animation, and even though it took a darker turn on their friendship, it was from around here you discover that even Manang, a creature portrayed as the animation's main villain, is misunderstood because she too has lost a memory.

Now, this was a sharp turn, but if I am to be honest, it in itself was predictable. The one friend who wants everything to remain the same threw away the key for them to return back to a world where she will lose her best friend.

If that was not enough as a blow to this movie, the ending, where Jo does all she can to get Raissa home and Raissa comes back to save her because friendship can cross boundaries of space between worlds, was like a cocky copout to what this movie had built in the stakes of these two's friendship.

So, this movie is worth seeing and I recommend you do, but just note it does have gaps where it shouldn't.