Animation feature film “Forgotten Island” is a fresh and exuberant fantasy tale which amused and engaged me a lot more than expected. Besides constantly filled with vibrant style and personality to savor, the film is also poignant as a heartfelt story about friendship and memory, and the result is another interesting animation film of this year.
The story and characters are alternatively specific and universal. At the beginning, the movie establishes the beginning of a longtime friendship between two girls living in some beach town of the Philippines during the 1990s, who cannot possibly be more different from each other. While Josephine “Jo” Yuson (voiced by Kailey Crawford and then H.E.R.) is a wild and spirited girl brimming with considerable artistic imagination, Raissa Molina (voiced by Kayla Teruel and then by Liza Soberano) is an introverted but prodigious girl who wants to be an engineer someday, but they happen to befriend each other on one school day when Jo causes her latest trouble.
Since she was very young, Jo has been obsessed with the legend of Kalina, a mythical island to which her doting grandmother Lola (Dolly de Leon) supposedly went once many years ago. She gladly shares the spirited products of her imagination with Raissa, and Raissa does not mind this at all even though her young mind is usually rational and analytical. After all, both of them are your average nerdy loners in their school, and their contrasting personalities somehow complement each other as they spend more time together under the care of Jo’s grandmother.
Of course, there eventually comes a turning point for Jo and Raissa when they are about to graduate from their high school. Jo has expected to continue their friendship during Raissa’s following college years, but it turns out that Raissa is actually going to move to US for studying in the California Institute of Technology. Nevertheless, Jo still tries to have a good time with her best friend before Raissa goes to US on the very next day, and we soon see them spending the evening at their favorite beach spot.
And then Jo comes across something which opens a portal to Kalina. As seeing how excited her best friend really is, Raissa eventually goes down into that magical portal along with Jo. Early in the next day, they find themselves waking up on the beach area of Kalina without having any idea or memory about what happened to them after their arrival in Kalina. While being both confused and fascinated about the fantasy world surrounding them, they come across Raww (voiced by Dave Franco), a sort of dogman who willingly becomes their guide as they try to find what happened during the previous evening for retrieving that special object necessary for opening the portal as soon as possible.
Yes, this can be regarded as a female variation of “The Hangover” (2009) decorated with a lot of fantasy elements. As our two young ladies bounce from one spot to another in the island along with their rather unreliable guide, small and big comic incidents happen along the story, and they also come across a number of other mythic entities ranging from a certain very fearsome figure chasing after them for a good reason to a bunch of little cute but aggressive creatures which incidentally resemble those mushroom people in those Super Mario Brothers animations flicks.
And these mythic entities are actually not only quite colorful but also very interesting for their considerable cultural background. As you can instantly learn from Wikipedia (Just check out the page on this very film, for example), many of them are from genuine folk tales and legends, and I think many Filipino audiences including my close friend/colleague Michael Mirasol will notice and recognize its ethnic/cultural aspects much more than me and other audiences, though we can also enjoy and appreciate them to some degree thanks to its irrepressible wit, style, and spirit. Just like many other recent animation films such as Oscar-winning Netflix animation film “KPop Demon Hunters” (2025), the film does not hesitate to become extremely silly and exaggerated for more laugh and amusement, and I was particularly tickled by a sequence involved with karaoke and a tribe of tree people not so far from those old wooden creatures in “The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers” (2002).
Even during its wildest moments, the film is steadily held together by the strong and dynamic friendship drama between Jo and Raissa. While they mostly stick together in front of many different risks in front of them, they also face some personal conflicts between them, and it is touching to see how they eventually go all the way for each other around the last act of the story. Kailey Crawford and Kayla Teruel instantly click well together early in the story, and they also are connected well with H.E.R. and Liza Soberano, who are equally wonderful with the natural chemistry between their solid voice performances.
Directors/writers Joel Crawford, who was Oscar-nominated for his previous animation film “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (2022), and Januel Mercado place a number of colorful voice cast members here and there around the film. While Dave Franco often steals the show, Manny Jacinto, Jenny Slate, Lea Salonga, Jo Koy, Ronny Chieng, Kevin McCann, and Dolly de Leon are also well-cast in their respective parts, and de Leon, who has been more prominent thanks to her acclaimed supporting turn in Oscar-nominated film “Triangle of Sadness” (2022), brings extra warmth early in the story.
In conclusion, “Forgotten Island” is often very entertaining thanks to its considerable amount of distinctive style and personality. I must confess that I rolled my eyes more than once during some of its silliest moments, but I came to embrace its undeniable charm and spirit more than expected in the end, and that is quite an achievement in my inconsequential opinion.
