{"id":901483,"date":"2026-09-22T16:40:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T16:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901483\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T16:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T16:40:19","slug":"forgotten-island-review-a-kid-hangover-steeped-in-filipino-folklore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901483\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten Island Review: A Kid Hangover Steeped in Filipino Folklore"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a lot going on in Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado\u2019s \u201cForgotten Island<\/a>,\u201d a heartfelt but exhaustingly hyper-frenetic Dreamworks Animation<\/a> comedy that remixes \u201cSuperbad,\u201d \u201cEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,\u201d and \u201cThe Hangover\u201d into a rave-like children\u2019s adventure steeped in Filipino folklore. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a touching story of memory and friendship (one that sees the \u201cHow to Train Your Dragon\u201d and \u201cKung Fu Panda\u201d production studio doubling down on the raw emotionality that worked so well for \u201cThe Wild Robot<\/a>\u201d), and also a manic cartoon that goes out of its way to make a joke about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars (because Dreamworks is still the house that \u201cShrek\u201d built, at the end of the day). It\u2019s a heavily researched but kid-friendly glimpse into a culture that Hollywood has never drawn to life before, and also an anime-inspired piece of cultural syncretism that repeatedly incorporates actual footage from the Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/a> classic \u201cPredator.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HEART<\/a> \"Linkin<\/a> <\/p>\n

Did I mention that Dave Franco voices a cool pubescent weredog \u2014 a combination of words that no human has ever typed before \u2014 who uncontrollably transforms into a tiny chihuahua whenever he gets too close to a stick?<\/p>\n

Like I said, it\u2019s a lot. Sometimes \u2014 frequently \u2014 too much. But it\u2019s hard to complain about \u201ctoo much\u201d at a time when most of the animated movies this country pumps out aren\u2019t nearly enough. While \u201cForgotten Island\u201d is relentless, distractable, and overstuffed to a degree that waters down the simple power of its message (and makes it difficult to understand the basic principles of its plot), none of its lovingly sourced ingredients ever lose the basic essence of their flavor.<\/p>\n

Ironically, \u201cForgotten Island\u201d is actually at its most lucid and affecting during the mad frenzy of its Manila-set first act, the pacing of which is even more insane than the rest of the movie that follows. Our story blasts off with a rocket fuel that beautifully conveys the frisson of a great childhood friendship: It\u2019s the early 1990s, texting isn\u2019t a thing yet, INXS is one of the biggest bands on Earth, and a violently imaginative tween orphan named Jo (voiced by the musician H.E.R.) is one detention away from being kicked out of yet another school after she goes a bit overboard with her latest creative writing assignment. Like most of Jo\u2019s work, it is inspired by the tales her grandmother Lola (Dolly de Leon) has told her about a mythical island called Nakalimutan. Jo is particularly drawn to a dreaded flying vampire-like creature known as Manang (Lea Salonga), who can separate her body at the hips and stalk her prey from both sides at once.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The teacher isn\u2019t much of a fan (and parents should be warned that Manang is pure nightmare fuel when she eventually shows up), but another girl in the class is delighted by the vivid darkness of Jo\u2019s presentation. Her name is Raissa (Liza Soberano), she\u2019s a bookish kid from a more affluent part of town, and from the moment she and Jo high-five over their shared love of \u201cmaximum dismemberment\u201d the two of them are utterly inseparable. Crawford and Mercado blitz through the formative years of their heroines\u2019 friendship in a vibrant blur of crazy misadventures and full-throated karaoke (Journey\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Stop Believin\u2019\u201d is a recurring motif), all of it set against the backdrop of a day-glo Manila that\u2019s been rendered with the halcyon sweetness of a memory.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all needle-drops and anime speed lines until the girls finish high school and Raissa reveals that she\u2019s low-key going to college halfway around the world at Caltech, a piece of information that very much conflicts with Jo\u2019s life plan for the immediate future (work at a fast food restaurant and be roommates with Raissa forever). Both girls are rattled by the thought of being apart, but a healthy friendship is better sustained by the magic of shared memories than by the fear of being forgotten.<\/p>\n

Of course, that can be a tricky thing for a teenager \u2014 or a grown-up \u2014 to accept. Lucky for these girls, they\u2019re spirited away to Nakalimutan on the eve of Raissa\u2019s departure, and getting back home before the plane takes off will require them to take full advantage of their special bond, and also to make peace with the fact that nothing, not even a memory-eating Ilocano demon voiced by Jenny Slate, could ever undo the time they spent together.<\/p>\n

When Jo and Raissa are swallowed through a sand dollar-shaped portal to the magical island from Lola\u2019s stories, the girls are less alarmed by where they are than by when \u2014 the sun has come up, Raissa\u2019s flight is just a few hours away, and neither of them have any recollection of the previous night, though judging by the crown on Jo\u2019s head, the demon wings gripping onto Raissa\u2019s shoulders, and the fact that every creature on Nakali seems to know\/have some beef with them, it seems like the BFFs had quite a time of things. Getting back home will require them to retrace their steps, meet up with the \u201cWild Pack\u201d of party monsters they\u2019ve already forgotten along the way (matching tattoos are involved), and find the key to re-opening that portal.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t expect a clear sequence of events as Jo and Raissa work their way toward finding the MacGuffin \u2014 \u201cForgotten Island\u201d moves too fast to explain where it\u2019s going, as Crawford and Mercado\u2019s script would rather emphasize that each of the girls feels differently about getting there. The good news is that Nakali is a fun place for a whirlwind tour, a bright storybook fantasia of cyan and magenta whose forests, temples, and craggy shores are home to an eye-popping ecosystem of mythological creatures (or \u201cAswang,\u201d as they\u2019re broadly referred to in Filipino folklore). This is Dreamworks, not Studio Ghibli, and so the spirits don\u2019t seem to have their own lives so much as they transparently exist for the benefit of the film<\/a>\u2019s characters and\/or a couple of slaphappy sight gags, but at least your kids will never be in need of something new to look at.<\/p>\n

The characters make sure of that. Thematically linked to Jo and Raissa by his own insecurities, Raww \u2014 Franco\u2019s giddy weredog \u2014 is a shape-shifting loner who\u2019s desperate to hold onto his newfound human friends, even though (or especially because) he can\u2019t even hold onto himself. \u201cForgotten Island\u201d may not meaningfully follow through on that emotional connection, but Franco lends Raww the perfect mix of cartoon eagerness and vulnerability, and the \u201cspontaneous transformation\u201d concept is a clever way of externalizing how feelings can take on a life of their own.<\/p>\n

The other Aswang we meet along the way each reflect Jo and Raissa\u2019s predicament to a more nebulous extent. One of them is a three-eyed, eight-foot-tall, 200-year-old baby named Bungi Tiyanak (voiced by Manny Jacinto) who\u2019s so attached to his mother that she literally needs to sever her umbilical cord in order to join Jo and Raissa\u2019s JRPG party; his arc gestures towards the need to leave home and stand on your own too feet. I\u2019m less sure how the forgettable tree giant Datu (Jo Koy) or the dehydrated Prince Mermahn (Kevin McCann as a shriveled water ghoul who puffs up into a vain merman with too much lip filler and \u201ca photogenic memory\u201d whenever he gets wet) are meant to contour the main characters. <\/p>\n

Still, even the most cutified of these creatures \u2014 that would be Duwende King Truffle Wuffle, voiced by Ronny Chieng, whose fearsome warrior tribe is betrayed by their adorability \u2014 all contribute to the film\u2019s cohesive sense of folklore, and underline the extent to which Filipino culture has been overlooked by Hollywood storytelling, for better or worse.<\/p>\n

None of the movie\u2019s creatures are truer to that folklore, or more acutely reflective of Jo and Raissa\u2019s drama, than the villainous Manang, whose ability to split herself in half doesn\u2019t just make for a neat and gnarly effect, but also viscerally illustrates the violence of the girls\u2019 impending separation. That Manang is kept to the shadows for most of the story is typical of today\u2019s mainstream animation, in which villains are little more than malformed ideas made flesh, but at least the heroes in this story feel like people who exist to do more than serve a theme.<\/p>\n

Jo and Raissa leap off the screen, even when the movie around them threatens to bury the girls under an avalanche of loud stuff. If the plot of \u201cForgotten Island\u201d can frequently be too busy in a way that distracts from the purity of its central friendship, the film always holds together \u2014 by something more than just centrifugal force \u2014 because the bond shared between its co-leads is strong enough to withstand a lot more than that.<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/p>\n

Universal Pictures will release \u201cForgotten Island\u201d in theaters on Friday, September 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a lot going on in Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado\u2019s \u201cForgotten Island,\u201d a heartfelt but exhaustingly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,20715,134,1689,277667,344,229],"class_list":["post-901483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dreamworks-animation","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-forgotten-island","tag-movies","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}