DreamWorks’ Forgotten Island debuted with a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score days before its Philippine release — here’s what critics are saying, the scene Filipino viewers won’t stop talking about, and where to watch it starting September 23.

Twenty-one critics have reviewed Forgotten Island so far. All twenty-one liked it. DreamWorks Animation’s newest feature debuted at a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer, the review-aggregation score that’s become Hollywood’s shorthand for early critical consensus.

The film opens in Philippine cinemas September 23, two days after the score posted, ahead of its September 25 US release. Filipino audiences now get to test what critics have already decided.

What Critics Are Actually Saying

The specifics back up the number. The Hollywood Reporter called the film “dazzling and tremendously fast-paced,” noting influences ranging from anime to Studio Ghibli to Spider-Man. Refinery29 called it “joyful, hilarious” and predicted it would bring many viewers to tears. IGN focused on what it called the power of “the history of friendship and the significance of shared memories,” a nod to the plot’s central conceit, in which two teenagers navigate a mythological realm that erases memories. Rotten Tomatoes’ own critics consensus points to “the thoughtfulness of the story,” alongside its heart and its passion for the culture it depicts.

It’s also DreamWorks Animation’s 50th animated feature, directed by Joel Crawford, who previously helmed The Croods: A New Age and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, alongside Januel Mercado, a Filipino American director making his feature debut. DreamWorks has described the film as carrying the largest concentration of Filipino and Filipino-American talent yet assembled for a major Hollywood animated feature.

The Scene Filipinos Won’t Stop Talking About

One scene is already circulating widely online ahead of the wide release. It’s a household gathering: a portrait of Jesus on the wall, a whole roasted lechon pig on the table, hotdogs and marshmallows skewered on sticks, lumpia and pancit, an uncle working through the videoke queue, and relatives performing mano po, the traditional gesture of pressing an elder’s hand to one’s forehead as a sign of respect, while the machine cues up “On the Wings of Love.”

Filipino viewers online have called the scene “unmistakably, painfully accurate.” The general reaction has settled on one description: aggressively Filipino, meant as the highest compliment. The specificity is what’s landing, the exact, hyper-particular details anyone who grew up in a Filipino household would recognize instantly.

Crawford and Mercado brought their own families along on a research trip to the Philippines before writing began. Crawford has credited his Filipina wife directly for the film’s existence, saying it grew out of wanting to center the strong women in his own family.

The Venice Arc, Coming Full Circle

The road here started well before this week. When ElysPlanet first covered the film’s cast and DreamWorks’ $100 million bet on it in August, Liza Soberano, who voices lead character Raissa opposite H.E.R. as Jo, was still in the pre-release press cycle. Weeks later, she was in Venice, sitting on the five-member jury for the Golden Globes Impact Prize for Documentary at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, alongside Golden Globes President Helen Hoehne and Impact Partners co-founder Geralyn White Dreyfous. The prize awards a $10,000 grant to its winning documentary through the Artemis Rising Foundation.

The jury seat also came with her actual Venice red carpet debut: a white Robert Wun couture gown scattered with butterfly motifs, corset-laced through the bodice with a voluminous skirt and sheer gloves, worn to the Artemis Rising Foundation’s documentary award ceremony during the festival. It’s the same artistic-credibility arc ElysPlanet’s jury piece traced back to her Hollywood debut in Lisa Frankenstein, continuing into a career increasingly built around international stages like this one.

Now that arc closes the loop. The film she was promoting in Venice is the one Philippine audiences get to judge for themselves, in theaters September 23.

Where and When to Watch

Forgotten Island held nationwide sneak screenings in the Philippines on September 19 and 20, ahead of its official theatrical release on September 23. Mercado has said that bringing Filipino stories to audiences “means everything” to him. The wider US release follows September 25, with preview screenings on September 24.

The voice cast beyond Soberano and H.E.R. includes Lea Salonga, Manny Jacinto, and Dave Franco, and the soundtrack draws from a Filipino and Filipino-American lineup: H.E.R., Lea Salonga, SB19, and BINI all contribute tracks. Untranslated Tagalog dialogue runs throughout the script, and the animation shifts between a hybrid painterly style and 2D anime-influenced sequences handled by Manila-based Snipple Animation.

The film also draws throughout on Philippine mythology, including folklore around the manananggal, a self-segmenting mythical creature from Philippine legend.