Forgotten Island Review
Forgotten Island (2026) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Joel Crawford and Januel P. Mercado and starring H.E.R., Liza Soberano, Dave Franco, Jenny Slate, Manny Jacinto, Ronny Chieng, Amielynn Abellera, Jo Koy, Dolly De Leon, Lea Salonga and Kristin Villanueva.
Filmmakers Joel Crawford and Januel P. Mercado bring the animated world of Forgotten Island to the screen with undeniable bliss. H.E.R. voices the energetic Jo, who is a young girl with very little ambition in life other than to be besties with the studious Raissa (Liza Soberano). Jo and Raissa are both called to the principal’s office in school and hit it off immediately, ultimately exchanging friendship bracelets that will mark their bond forever. What a pleasant diversion Forgotten Island actually turns out to be wouldn’t be such a bad thing at all if the movie didn’t take a few minor missteps along the way that hold it back from achieving greatness.
Jo is a girl who can become a bit annoying. She shows up at a family party and accidentally sets a fire, and she is constantly screwing things up. She’s frustrating as she tries to trade one of her sneakers for a memory when she enters the “forgotten island” of the film’s title with Raissa. There, they meet a character known as Raww (Dave Franco), who could go all out “dog” and then start licking his feet at any given moment. Pretty wild, isn’t it?
Raww is a major problem with the movie. We’re not quite sure of his true motives and he and another key character seem to be fabricating details and/or keeping secrets, which makes the movie beg the question of what is actually happening on the island. Raissa wakes up with half her hair cut off, which turns out to have happened due to a fiery fart that was laid by another minor character. Jo forgets things, too, and when Raww tries to help the friends get their memories back, they get conned by another character on the island. Well, sort of.
There is a plot in Forgotten Island that is easily digestible, but frustrating at times to watch, nevertheless. There are characters like Dreaded Manananggal (Lea Salonga) that feel like afterthoughts in a script that should have been more focused on the lives of the girls and the friendship that is being threatened by the fact that Raissa wants to go to college at a university far away from home. Jo wants to be a chicken fast food joint rep, but she fails time and time again to truly “get” the bigger picture in terms of what her best friend, Raissa, wants in life.
On the island, the young girls try to remember what happened to them as they see they’ve been tattooed and have photographic evidence that good things happened to them on the island. They seek out to find a portal back home because Raissa has to get to college, but Jo may have other intentions in terms of keeping her friend closer to home.
H.E.R. is solid as Jo, offering plenty of humorous anecdotes. Although the character is a ball of fast-paced energy, it is likely that no audience member will be able to keep up with Jo unless there’s a bit of frustration felt, in part due to the overextended energy on-screen. It’s a bit of an overload, to say the least. Dolly De Leon is the resident parental figure on board, Lola Fatima, who inspires both young girls to be all they can be. De Leon is absolutely fine in her voice role.
Forgotten Island takes a couple of wrong turns, but it’s still a winner in the end. The island, Nakali, is supposed to be a mystical place, but it can get a little dull when the movie runs out of steam about an hour in. It’s the laughs that keep the sequences flowing from scene-to-scene, as well as a fun soundtrack that features the song from the 1980’s with the popular lyrics, “Don’t You Forget About Me” from The Breakfast Club.
This film is fun even if some things happen way too fast. Characters come and go rather quickly with the baddie of the film only moderately enjoyable to watch. Though the movie needed a villain to tell some of its story, the real villain can often by Jo, who walks around in a chicken suit, aimlessly, while cracking zany one-liners, hoping to make a go of a life she never really thought-out all too much.
As a touching portrait of a friendly connection between two young girls, Forgotten Island works on a much better basis than it does as anything else it’s trying to be. Those forgettable side characters in the movie often feel like imitations of characters like the Genie from Aladdin or the evil female villain from The Little Mermaid. Still, the movie eventually settles down, and Jo becomes more tolerable as she starts to see her bestie’s desire for a bit of distance between them despite their strong bond.
Raww gets a bigger part in the action the more the film goes on, and Franco voices him well. Though the characters grow on the viewer as it continues, the movie could have cleaned up some vague ideas early on in the proceedings. Some of the opening scenes are confusing as the viewer may feel overwhelmed by the movie’s kinetic pacing and wild lead character, Jo.
That being said, there’s a lot to enjoy in Forgotten Island. There’s definitely no faulting the soundtrack, which throws in hit after hit in a fun way. The problem is that there is not always the requisite plausibility on-screen in regard to the fact that the girls in the movie would listen to the music they listen to and so on and so forth, but never mind, the movie doesn’t have to be believable to be fun.
Forgotten Island is a movie with some big ideas that ultimately is quite satisfactory for families who are looking to have a lot of fun at a new DreamWorks animation picture. Jo can be annoying at the outset, but by film’s end, you may just find her becoming the little sister you wish you had. Well at least for two hours, anyway.
Rating: 7/10
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