Forgotten Island Review: DreamWorks’ Latest is Rambunctious Fun

Is it possible to cram too much into an animated movie? That’s a question that frequently popped into my head while watching DreamWorks’ latest, Forgotten Island, directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado. Crawford’s previous directorial work, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, is one of the finest works of animation of the last decade. Forgotten Island bursts with energy and is a truly rich story of two girls, their friendship, and memory. Much like with The Last Wish, I found the marketing for this film unrelatable and annoying, and from the very start, I was worried I’d be rolling my eyes more than dropping my jaw.

Forgotten Island Review

To a lesser extent than with The Last Wish, I was disarmed by the charm and exuberant life of Forgotten Island’s characters and storytelling, which is often far more powerful than cringeworthy. Make no mistake: this is a healthy dose of excitement that sometimes feels like it’s doing a little bit too much.

Forgotten Island follows two young girls through their youth and their continuing friendship into their adulthood. Jo (H.E.R.), the rambunctious, aggressive, loud type, is nicely paired alongside Raissa (Liza Soberano), her smart, quieter foil. The schemes of Raissa and Jo are a very movie-esque picture of perfect friendship, but they do feel authentic, especially thanks to the voice performances, many of which are incredible. H.E.R. and Soberano stand out clearly as they reach the dawn of their adult friendship, which is nicely mapped out through the chaos they weave through the town and physically tracked on the shared friendship bracelets they create.

It’s suddenly upended when the mystical Forgotten Island, which seemed before to be only the ramblings of children who let their memories run a little wild, turns out to be real. With every movie about a magical island, something has to go wrong or the characters have to leave for any given reason. Here, the reason is immediately clear: Raissa has a flight to Caltech, where she was planning to move to continue her future, leaving Jo, who has no future, behind.

To make matters worse, they wake up on this island with no memory of their past, leading the two on a magical adventure to figure out how to get off, how their friendship can endure, and what their memories mean to each other. In Forgotten Island, Jo and Raissa are immediately interrupted by Raww, a half-child, half-dog, werewolf-type guy, joyfully played by Dave Franco, who has recently found a niche in chaotic, lovable roles. Franco gives a nice burst of energy to a film that is already pretty tapped out on that, and he would’ve worked strikingly well as the film’s third lead.

Like every child telling a story (or, as the film has them, two loud children constantly hopped up on energy drinks, drunk on caffeine), the story rambles and introduces new characters into the narrative, which ultimately feels messy. Of course, on any magical island, you have to have magical creatures and magical friends, like a baby demon played by Manny Jacinto or a mermaid who has no real relevance to the plot and looks like he has an Instagram or Snapchat filter plastered all over his face. There are these weird marshmallow-type enemies that the characters insist are the cutest things ever. It’s in moments like these that Forgotten Island really loses me.

What bothered me so much about the marketing for both this and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was the childish, stupid humor that goes on. I suppose this film is more similar to K-Pop: Demon Hunters in that way: aside from the obvious anime references that come through the film, the narrative frequently trips over itself to tell a few more jokes when it’s not really needed. At least The Last Wish dared to be sincere at all the moments it mattered, but Forgotten Island wants to be a little more playful than that, which is fine for the most part. I found myself rolling my eyes at quite a good chunk of it.

The dynamic between Jo and Raissa is well done, yet it feels like the directors didn’t want to go as far as they could have. I won’t go into spoilers in my review because I feel like that’s not fair to you, the loyal reader, but I’m not a fan of the conclusion, which I find twists itself up in a lot of knots to make everything work when it didn’t really need to.

I think the film would’ve been far better, for example, if it focused on one antagonist instead of two: a memory demon, a mischievous cat-looking thing played by Jenny Slate, or a crazy vampire demon lady that just really wants to rip these two girls in half. Sometimes, when the film gets very loud as a result of Jo and Raissa, I sort of felt the same way, but it always managed to win me over, whether from the soulful performances of H.E.R. and Soberano or the truly phenomenal bits of animation that feel like they’re all individually crafted with more care than some entire movies or episodes of TV have.

Is Forgotten Island worth watching?

At the end of the day, being a child is embarrassing. Sincerity is embarrassing, and sometimes friendship can be embarrassing, too. I think we could learn a lot from this. It’s easy to chastise the film for being obnoxious, and trust me, I don’t think it’s absolved of any of its sins of that obnoxiousness, but there’s something so exciting and truthful about their relationship. Forgotten Island could certainly use a few turns to the left on the volume knob and could stand to be a lot more mature, but it’s clearly a work of deep passion that has remained dormant for so many years. I’ll never fault people for making art that is as honest as this. I certainly look forward to seeing what Crawford and Mercado have in store for us next.

Forgotten Island releases in theaters on September 25, 2026.

Forgotten Island Review: DreamWorks’ Latest is Rambunctious Fun