DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island is now playing in theaters, introducing audiences to a fantasy adventure filled with creatures drawn from Filipino mythology and an ensemble voice cast that includes H.E.R., Liza Soberano, Dave Franco, Jenny Slate, Manny Jacinto, Lea Salonga, Dolly de Leon, Jo Koy and Ronny Chieng.
Directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, the filmmakers behind Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the movie follows lifelong friends Jo and Raissa as their lives approach a major change. Raissa is preparing to leave the Philippines to attend Caltech, but before the friends can go their separate ways, they stumble through a mysterious portal and enter Nakali, a fantastical island populated by strange creatures. Getting home presents an unusual price: escaping could cost them the memories of their friendship.
The movie opened in theaters on September 25, giving audiences their first full look at a world DreamWorks built around Filipino culture and folklore. While critics have differed over the film’s rapid pace and abundance of ideas, its voice cast has emerged as an important part of bringing Nakali and its unusual inhabitants to life.
H.E.R. and Liza Soberano Anchor the Story as Jo and Raissa
At the center of Forgotten Island are H.E.R. as Jo and Liza Soberano as Raissa. Their characters enter the story at a point when a friendship that has defined much of their lives is about to change. Jo is imaginative and impulsive, while Raissa is preparing to leave home and pursue the next stage of her life at Caltech.
That relationship gives the movie an emotional foundation beneath its creatures, transformations and fast-moving fantasy adventure. Nakali may be filled with monsters inspired by folklore, but Jo and Raissa’s journey is ultimately connected to memory, separation and what happens to childhood friendships when two people begin moving in different directions.
H.E.R., whose career has primarily been associated with music, brings a different background to the role of Jo. The Grammy and Academy Award-winning singer previously expanded into acting with The Color Purple, and Forgotten Island gives her a major animated lead. Soberano, meanwhile, has an extensive acting career in the Philippines and provides another important connection between the film’s cast and the culture that inspired its setting.
Their performances have to carry the quieter side of a movie that rarely stays quiet for long. Several reviews have pointed to the friendship between Jo and Raissa as the emotional element underneath the film’s deliberately chaotic fantasy world, even among critics who have been divided over how much room the story gives that relationship to develop.
Dave Franco, Jenny Slate and Manny Jacinto Become Nakali’s Creatures
Once Jo and Raissa arrive in Nakali, Forgotten Island introduces a collection of characters that gives its supporting voice cast considerably more room to experiment.
Dave Franco voices Raww, a shapeshifting weredog who can transform between different forms. Despite the supernatural concept, Raww retains some distinctly canine instincts, allowing the character’s transformations and behavior to become a source of comedy throughout the adventure.
Jenny Slate plays Batiba, a creature inspired by the Batibat of Filipino folklore. The character collects objects connected to people’s memories, tying her directly into one of the movie’s central ideas. Slate’s vocal approach to Batiba has also attracted attention in reviews, with critics highlighting the unusual performance she uses for the character. It adds another highly stylized animated role to a voice acting career that already includes Zootopia, The Secret Life of Pets, The Lego Batman Movie and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.
Manny Jacinto voices Bungi, a large baby demon inspired by the Tiyanak of Filipino mythology. Bungi initially has little interest in leaving his mother but becomes part of Jo and Raissa’s increasingly strange journey across the island. For Jacinto, the role follows a growing collection of animation and voice credits alongside his live-action work, while also giving the Filipino Canadian actor a direct connection to a project drawing heavily from Filipino folklore.
The three characters demonstrate the film’s approach to its mythology. Rather than simply reproducing traditional creatures, Forgotten Island reworks folkloric ideas into colorful personalities suited to the movie’s comedic adventure, giving Franco, Slate and Jacinto characters that can be strange, funny and occasionally threatening within the same story.
Filipino Performers Help Populate the World of Forgotten Island
The wider cast adds even more connections to Filipino culture. Broadway legend Lea Salonga voices Manang, a Manananggal, one of the most recognizable supernatural creatures in Philippine folklore. Dolly de Leon voices Jo’s grandmother, Lola Fatima, while comedian Jo Koy plays Datu. Ronny Chieng joins the ensemble as Truffle Wuffle.
Their casting accompanies a story that was developed with Filipino culture as much more than visual decoration. Co-director Januel Mercado, who is Filipino American, helped shape Nakali using mythology, personal experience and cultural references that had rarely been given this scale in a major Hollywood animated feature.
That influence extends to the creatures themselves. Figures inspired by the Manananggal, Tiyanak and Batibat allow the film to draw from supernatural traditions that may be immediately recognizable to Filipino audiences while being entirely new to many international viewers.
The voice ensemble reflects that balance. Performers including Soberano, Jacinto, Salonga, de Leon and Koy bring their own Filipino backgrounds to a production that is introducing elements of that culture to a worldwide DreamWorks audience, while actors such as Franco and Slate take on creatures reimagined specifically for the movie’s heightened animated world.
Forgotten Island’s Energy Divides Critics
With Forgotten Island now in theaters, reviews have revealed a movie whose greatest strengths and weaknesses may come from the same place. Critics have widely noted its relentless energy, densely packed visual ideas and willingness to throw new creatures and concepts at its characters throughout the adventure.
Some reviews have responded positively to that ambition, particularly the movie’s colorful interpretation of Filipino mythology, inventive animation and supporting characters. The voice ensemble has also drawn attention, with Batiba among the characters singled out for the personality Slate brings to her performance.
Other critics have been less convinced by the pace. Some reviews have argued that the movie moves so rapidly between jokes, action and new ideas that its characters are not always given enough time to breathe, particularly when the friendship between Jo and Raissa is supposed to provide the emotional weight behind the adventure.
That divided response makes Forgotten Island an unusually busy addition to DreamWorks’ animated catalog, but its voice cast has plenty to work with. H.E.R. and Soberano provide the friendship at the center of the story, while Franco, Slate, Jacinto and the larger ensemble populate Nakali with characters that range from shapeshifting dogs to creatures drawn from generations of Filipino folklore.
For audiences discovering that mythology through the movie, many of those creatures will arrive with unfamiliar names and histories. Forgotten Island’s cast gives them something immediately accessible in return: distinctive voices and personalities designed to make Nakali feel like a world worth remembering.
