Critic Reviews

Forgotten Island is a terrific movie that delivers an effective, emotional story about the memories we make with our friends mixed with a big, funny, and sometimes dark adventure through a land of creatures culled from Filipino folklore.

Deeply felt and fully satisfying, Crawford and Mercado’s odyssey is a wonderful cinematic experience — but for best results, watch it with a friend.

Forgotten Island, a fantasy adventure built around the friendship between two teenage girls, is another winner from the team that oversaw “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.” It does an equally honorable job of tackling issues you might not expect a family-friendly animated feature to address.

The film’s comedic throughline is punctuated by poignant moments of vulnerability as each character grapples with all-too-relatable insecurities, from Jo’s fear of being constantly abandoned by loved ones to Raissa’s aversion to taking risks. You’ll soon find yourself rooting for our protagonists as they make life-changing sacrifices — and realizing alongside them just how powerful a force friendship can be.

Forgotten Island plays with ideas that have been brought to the screen over and over, about how the official transition from childhood to adulthood is scary and melancholy as well as exciting, and how relationships are built on shared memories. But the creators put their own unmistakable stamp on those ideas. It seems uniquely appropriate for a movie built around the importance of memories to be this memorable itself.

While it can seem like the movie is repeating much of what made The Last Wish work, Forgotten Island is still utterly amazing. A touching story of friendship and how "memories are magic" with a voice cast that adds dimension to some great characters. You'll want to take another trip to Forgotten Island immediately.

Is the story increasingly messy as it goes on? A little bit, sure. Does it maybe take a bit too long to get to all the fantastical magic stuff? Again, sure. But the voice actors are absolutely euphoric and perfectly cast, and there are multiple scenes where the animation is so inspired, so creative, and spellbinding, you sort of can’t believe it. And, more importantly, you hope Crawford and Mercado get to make something completely original, on this scale, again and again and again.

In this new wave of movies, Forgotten Island rivals Across the Spider-Verse as the busiest of them. For some, that could prove overwhelming. I found it invigorating. Inspired by Filipino mythology, which proves very fertile ground as both a design template and a storytelling engine, this movie eschews the gentler vibe of the aforementioned Dreamworks titles for something that feels fueled by the energy drinks favored by the lead characters. Your experience with it will depend on whether you appreciate how far it leans into being a stoner-esque buddy comedy, perhaps at the expense of fully accessing the emotionality of its core premise – but get on its wavelength, and the laughs just don't stop.

The convoluted story is told with so much wit, humor, energy and visual invention that it becomes easy to get swept up in the fantastical proceedings, and the film’s touching portraits of the relationship between the two girls and lovable Lola, and with each other, provide genuine emotion.

Forgotten Island offers a glimpse into Filipino culture through a universal story about friendship, change, and the fear of being left behind. Forgotten Island isn't just a Filipino story because of its mythology, music, or references; it is Filipino because its culture drives the friendship at the heart of the movie.