A One Mann’s Movies review of “Forgotten Island”. (2026, 3.5*, PG).
I wonder whether, in the world of animated movies, release dates will be referred to as “BW” and “AW”, standing for “Before Wildwood” and “After Wildwood“. Because the Laika film has set the bar to impossibly high standards. But I guess things get easier if you class Wildwood as ‘stop motion’ animation and other media as ‘graphical animation’. Because, just 2-days ‘BW’ I viewed Forgotten Island and thought it to be a really well-made animated feature. Here we are very much in the style of the Spider-Verse films, particularly the second one – Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which kept flashing in and out of different styles of Anime animation.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Best friends Jo (Kailey Crawford) and Raissa (Kayla Teruel) meet as kids outside the headmaster’s office of their Philippines school. They start off as naughty children, but now as besties – “you had me at disembowelment” – they have evolved (as now H.E.R. and Liza Soberanoto respectively) to be naughty and rebellious teens. Jo is obsessed with her granny’s story of a secret island of Nakali, reached through the use of a portal-generating talisman. She gives up hope of ever finding it. But one evening, on the beach and on the eve of Raissa leaving for Caltech in California, she discovers what she is looking for.
Certification:
UK: PG; US: PG. (From the BBFC website: “Threat, violence, injury detail, language, dangerous behaviour, rude humour.”)
Talent:
Starring: H.E.R., Liza Soberano, Dave Franco, Jenny Slate, Manny Jacinto, Lea Salonga, Dolly De Leon, Jo Koy, Ronny Chieng, Kevin McCann, Kailey Crawford, Kayla Teruel.
Directed by: Joel Crawford, Januel P. Mercado.
Written by: Joel Crawford, Januel P. Mercado.
Running Time: 1h 49m.
Review:
Positives:
- This is full of great, magnificently animated action sequences set to a banging soundtrack. Tracks include Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”, INXS’s classic “Never Tear Us Apart”, Montell Jordan’s “This is How We Do It” and Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me”. As I said above, the animation style is quirky in flashing from its ‘traditional’ style that you see in all of these screenshots into an anime-style at moments of high action or drama. It works very well.
- I thought the story was effective. It was a little like Christopher Nolan’s Memento, with the girls waking up on a beach in Nakali with no memory as to what had happened to them in the last 24 hours: their memories have gone “like a fart in the wind”! This is a bit of a puzzle: they have photos of some of their adventures and need to travel the island, working backwards to discover where they’ve been and what they’ve done. The story eventually exposes the reason for their amnesia which I found a nicely satisfying reveal.
- The film has some nice characters to enjoy. As well as the touching – increasingly strained – relationship between ambitious ‘rocket scientist’ Raissa and the burger-flipping ‘boulder’ Jo, there is: an agoraphobic cat called Batiba (Jenny Slate); a human/dog hybrid Raww (Dave Franco), who has real trouble with sticks; a narcissistic Prince Merhman (Kevin McCann) with talking starfish nipple-pasties; Bungi Tiyanaka (Manny Jacinto), a three-eyed man-baby monster, literally still attached via an umbilical cord to his mother; a terrifying demon Manang (Lea Salonga) who can split into two parts; and an army of mushroom people, led by King Truffle Wuffle (Ronny Chieng), who might look cute but they have the aggressive tendencies of Klingons!
Negatives:
- I wasn’t sure that the antisocial and often dangerous behaviour of Jo and Raissa in their teenage years sets a good impression for younger children. They don’t seem to get any comeuppance for their behaviour either.
Summary Thoughts:
I thought this was an energetic and entertaining animated feature. More importantly, I went to see this with two of my grandkids – Frankie, 11 and Eva, 9 – and they both loved it. So, a good film to take your kids to see at the cinema, but parents: be aware that the demon character Menang might be too threatening for younger children.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8RHqN93qfo.
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