TL;DR: A vibrant Filipino fantasy with terrific cultural identity and a genuinely touching friendship at its core. Forgotten Islandoccasionally overloads its adventure, but its heart, mythology and inventive animation keep it afloat.

DreamWorks has spent years proving that family animation does not need to sand down every cultural edge until the finished movie feels assembled by committee. Forgotten Island pushes that philosophy further, building a fantasy adventure where Filipino identity is not decorative wallpaper but part of the emotional machinery. Directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, the team behind Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the film combines Philippine folklore, friendship drama and an increasingly chaotic supernatural road trip. The result is imaginative, heartfelt and frequently gorgeous, even if its enthusiasm for showing us absolutely everything occasionally makes the movie feel like somebody refused to delete anything from the fantasy bestiary.

Forgotten Island turns friendship into its real fantasy quest

At the centre of Forgotten Island are Jo (H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano), childhood friends united by their fascination with Nakali, the mysterious Forgotten Island described in stories by Jo’s grandmother. Their lives are about to split in very different directions when Raissa prepares to leave the Philippines to attend college in the United States. Then the impossible happens: the pair reach the island they have obsessed over, only to wake up without remembering how they arrived or how to get home. Their escape becomes tangled with the possibility that getting back could cost them memories of the friendship they are desperately trying to preserve.

That’s a wonderfully cruel emotional mechanic for an animated adventure. The fantasy problem and the human problem are essentially the same thing: how do you move forward without erasing what came before? Jo’s hurt is understandable without turning Raissa’s ambitions into some selfish betrayal, while Raissa’s decision can be right for her future and still leave emotional wreckage behind. That gives Forgotten Island considerably more weight than the usual “friends learn to appreciate each other before the credits” routine. The stakes work because neither character needs to become the villain for their relationship to fracture.

H.E.R. and Liza Soberano give the movie its beating heart

Jo and Raissa fit a familiar opposites-attract friendship template, with their different temperaments creating plenty of friction, but H.E.R. and Soberano prevent that dynamic from becoming mechanical. Their vocal chemistry communicates history: these sound like two people who know exactly how to irritate each other because they also know each other better than almost anyone else. That warmth matters once resentment starts creeping into the relationship.

More importantly, the film understands that growing apart is not necessarily the same thing as abandoning someone. Jo represents the pain of being left behind, while Raissa embodies the uncomfortable reality that opportunity sometimes requires departure. For Filipino audiences familiar with families and friendships stretched across countries, that idea carries an obvious additional resonance, but the underlying emotion is universal. Anyone who has watched a best friend move away, start another life or simply follow a path that no longer runs alongside their own should recognise something here.

Filipino mythology gives DreamWorks a fantastic new playground

Where Forgotten Island really separates itself from the increasingly crowded animated-fantasy field is its use of Philippine culture and mythology. Tagalog appears naturally alongside English, while Filipino food, social customs, music and everyday details establish the setting without making the movie feel like it is constantly stopping for a cultural PowerPoint presentation. The supernatural world similarly draws upon creatures from Philippine folklore, adapting them for a family audience without completely stripping away their cultural identity.

That approach gives the island personality beyond simply being another colourful fantasy biome. Even the decision to imagine traditionally frightening supernatural creatures under less hostile circumstances creates an interesting shift in perspective. Instead of treating folklore exclusively as a monster catalogue waiting for the heroes to start grinding XP, Forgotten Island asks what these beings might be like when they are not terrorising unfortunate humans. It is playful reinterpretation rather than mythology being reduced to exotic set dressing.

The animation gets weird exactly when it should

Crawford and Mercado also refuse to lock the film into a single visual vocabulary. The animation can shift toward exaggerated, chibi-like expressions or radically alter its presentation when characters recount events. Those changes are not merely DreamWorks showing off what the animation department can do; they support a story where memory and unreliable recollection are fundamental.

Because Jo and Raissa cannot initially remember their arrival, other characters effectively become storytellers filling in the missing pieces. Changing the visual language during those accounts creates an immediate distinction between objective reality and somebody else’s potentially embellished version of it. When memories eventually become clearer, returning those moments to the movie’s established visual style gives the device an actual narrative payoff. It is the kind of animation-as-storytelling trick that makes the medium feel essential rather than simply being the delivery mechanism.

Forgotten Island sometimes has too much loot in its inventory

The downside is that Forgotten Island seems so excited about its world that it struggles to leave anything unexplored. New creatures, locations and supporting characters keep arriving, and eventually the adventure begins competing with itself for attention. Raww, the were-aspin voiced by Dave Franco, has an identifiable function within the journey, but other inhabitants barely receive enough time to justify their introduction. Mermahn, for example, contributes relatively little despite occupying another precious slot in an already busy adventure.

That overcrowding is particularly frustrating because the material is interesting. I wanted more room for the island to breathe rather than another dash toward the next creature or destination. Lea Salonga’s Dreaded Manananggal feels similarly underserved; casting such a significant Filipino performer and then giving the character relatively limited vocal material feels like unlocking a legendary character and leaving them permanently sitting on the bench. The movie has an abundance problem rather than an imagination problem, but the pacing still pays the price.

The music completes the cultural identity, but could go further

Music gives the film another opportunity to connect its fantasy with contemporary Filipino culture. BINI’s “A Parallel World” functions as a central musical presence, while SB19’s version of Francis M’s “Mga Kababayan” accompanies the introduction to a community of supernatural beings. These choices make the soundtrack feel connected to the same cultural foundation as the mythology rather than populated with interchangeable global pop tracks.

If anything, that confidence makes me wish Forgotten Island had pushed further. A wider selection of OPM, particularly music spanning different generations, could have expanded the movie’s celebration of Filipino culture beyond contemporary stars. The film already trusts international audiences to follow Tagalog and discover unfamiliar mythology through context. Extending that same confidence to an even broader musical selection could have turned the soundtrack into another gateway for curious viewers.

Verdict

Forgotten Island works because beneath all the portals, creatures, mythology and visual experimentation is a painfully ordinary fear: somebody you love is moving forward, and you are terrified their new life will no longer have room for you. Jo and Raissa give that idea genuine emotional weight, while H.E.R. and Liza Soberano make their friendship convincing enough to carry the adventure.

The movie’s biggest weakness is almost hilariously connected to one of its strengths. Its world is so packed with ideas that supporting characters and mythology sometimes flash past before they have a chance to matter, with Lea Salonga’s limited role standing out as a particularly frustrating missed opportunity. Still, Forgotten Island delivers a culturally specific fantasy without making that specificity a barrier to everyone else. For families, animation fans and viewers hungry for fantasy worlds drawn from mythology Hollywood rarely explores, this is an adventure worth taking.