The film begins with the narrative about Ferngully by an old wise fairy named Magi. She reveals that humans and fairies were once friends.

Unfortunately, disasters happened and all the people had to flee. But legend says that the humans went extinct thanks to this spirit demon, Hexxus.

And this is all being told to Magi’s apprentice, Crysta, a naive teenage fairy. Crysta remains curious as she leaves and returns to her tribe.

She has her father, love interest Pips, and some other fairies who are practically like neighbors. She generally gets along with all of them.

At some point, Crysta decides to explore another part of the rainforest. There she meets this cowardly, but comical bat named Batty Koda. He shares that he had a negative experience with humans. Yet Crysta still wants to take him to find out where the people really are.

Meanwhile, some workers are in a crane machine. Among them is a teenage boy named Zak. Then there are his supervisors, Tony and Ralph.

Later, Zak is outside. Crysta, who is still learning how to use magic, accidentally shrinks him to the size of a fairy when she meant to save him from a falling tree.

For a while, Zak is confused and so are the other fairies, to why he is so tiny. But the fairies notice that he is wearing shoes, which fairies never wear. Eventually, Zak also found out that he strong and freaks out.

It’s a bigger deal for Batty Koda, who panics like crazy. But then there are some creatures that want to eat Zak.

Once Crysta rescues him, he gains her trust. She will take him to Magi to get him back to his normal size.

While the 2 get to know each other, Zak still hides the reason for why people actually returned.

Meanwhile, Hexxus is reviving after Zak had cut down the tree that had trapped him for a while. And he is getting stronger and more dangerous thanks to consuming the pollution from the machine driven by Ralph and Tony. He even tricks the 2 into driving into Ferngully.

Crysta and Zak fall in love even more. And to the point where Pips begins to feel jealous.

However, they all learn about the return of Hexxus and that Zak actually lied about the human’s intentions. Poor Crysta, now feels betrayed and no longer trust Zak, even though he realizes that what he did was wrong.

But stakes are continuing to rise. Can Ferngully be saved?

This movie kept my attention all the way through from the beginning to the end. Aside from its fast pacing and short run time of only around an hour and a quarter, the concept and musical numbers made the story even stronger.

The tension levels were also high enough that I was constantly worried about what was going to happen. And this movie is light-hearted since it’s supposed to be family-friendly.

All the major characters are memorable and well-developed. Crysta was naive and curious but still a strong female lead. Her voice and personality also reminded me of Ariel from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, although she is not voiced by the same actress.

There are also a couple of characters that reminded me of 2 characters from Disney’s Aladdin. They include Crysta’s father, who looked, sounded, and acted a bit like the Sultan. And then there was Batty Koda, who sounded and acted a lot like the genie. But he was voiced by Robin Williams, who we all know, also did the voice of the genie.

Like the genie, Batty Koda was enthusiastic and did a lot of jokes and gags. Even though both this movie and Aladdin were released in 1992, Aladdin came out several months after this one. So, it’s likely that these elements that I find connections to were coincidences.

Zak was also very likable by both his positive traits and his flaws. He and Crysta made a sweet couple.

That being said, this movie did have some weaknesses. For instance, even though it’s set in Australia, pretty much all the characters have American accents, including the humans. Zak even says dude, which is American slang.

I understand that it’s a movie, and it’s animated. But in this case, there should be a little more authenticity and respect for Australian culture. For example, I don’t think Australians say dude.

They say mate, because their land was colonized by the British. They also use the same vocabulary words as the British

And as we all know, their accent sounds similar to the British, particularly Cockney. Even if they couldn’t cast Australian actors, they could have at least cast actors who could do really good Australian accents.

That part was really only the major drawback. Otherwise, I enjoyed Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. It’s a good to the animated movie, not made by Disney that can appeal to people of all ages.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.