Raya and the Last Dragon

Disney has always been known for their up and down periods throughout the decades since their creation, and 2018 -2019 was one such downgrade for the famous company. While they have been in far worse bad periods previously (Roseanne Bar as a cow is still their lowest point), those two years saw a lot of poorly handled movies; including garbage remakes of classic stories, shaky follow-ups to movies that clearly weren’t planned out, and original ideas that were either watered down or just not presented in a stand-out enough way. While they were still doing very well on television, Disney definitely needed a comeback, and the 2021 animated movie, Raya and the Last Dragon felt like that comeback. In the fictional land of Kumandra, after a failed attempt at reuniting the five separate colonies of the land, the princess of the Heart tribe, Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran) loses her father, Chief Benja (voiced by Daniel Dae Kim) to an ancient evil plague of spirits known as the Druun who turn people to stone, and all the kingdoms remain disconnected. Years pass and she manages to reach her goal of finding the last dragon, Sisu (voiced by Awkwafina) who was previously responsible for stopping the Druun centuries ago. After discovering she’s not as perfect as she hoped, that it was her sister dragons who truly defeated the plague previously, and that she can only vanquish the Druun if she has all pieces of the now shattered heart of the Dragon, Raya plans to travel with Sisu to restore the heart and fix the world, all the while being tracked by Namaari (voiced by Gemma Chan) an old friend of Raya who caused the fallout to begin with. Beginning this new era with a Princess movie with a new coat of paint, Raya and the Last Dragon proves to be an enjoyable, visually stunning, expertly crafted movie with a lot of good things to appreciate.

In terms of what this movie is doing different compared to others of its type, it feels like it’s going pretty against the norm for something more traditional Disney. It has the layout of a typical fairy tale, including the princess lead, the animal sidekick, the colorful side characters, and the magical threat, but it has no songs, the story isn’t a fairy tale, it’s actually a PG movie for a reason, it has a heavier focus on action, and it has the Eastern Asian culture rooted within its very plot, it took what recent Disney films were doing with injecting new elements and presented them all together here in a pretty nice bow.  It doesn’t feel like a remark on their own brand either, it doesn’t go full satire and retains the usual components of a Disney, just with a newer edge. With that said, the story and world-building in this movie is some of the best Disney has ever done with its animation. While the plot, originally thought up by Bradley Raymond and Helen Kalafati, does have its fair share of cliches and even the opening 20mins isn’t a good representation of its quality, the remainder of the movie does a pretty fantastic job stitching everything together in an interesting and emotionally engaging package. For a storyline that had over ten people working on it, including the film’s directors, Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada, the film’s screenwriters, Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim, and several others including Paul Briggs, Kiel Murray, John Rippa, and Dean Wellins, its impressive it came out as coherent as it did.   Despite being almost two hours, the quick pace usually allows for things to keep progressing without wasting time and the movie doesn’t rely too much on elements that have been getting repetitive from Disney previously. What originally looked like another standard ‘’prejudice is bad’’ story that Disney has been obsessed with recently, making it more about the boundaries of trust is far more interesting; taking something familiar and even more adult and presenting it in a fashion that kids can understand. The flawless way they map out this environment is also fantastic; it’s a location that feels well fleshed out and liveable despite the limited time spent in it, each location is given its own identity, look and culture and it’s an environment that would be amazing to see again in a future project. How it ties into the story and the message, and how it lets the audience experience these environments without just speaking about them leads to a well laid out world. While this is all wonderful, not everything is spotless. The climax doesn’t quite reach the levels of fulfilled epicness that it’s going for and the execution of the message does take some stretching to properly buy into, but this has been something Disney has struggled with in regard to their messages before, so it doesn’t feel too different here. It feels like this could be one of the top Disney films, but it feels like there’s something missing that is just hard to exactly pin down.

All the characters are very likeable, charming, memorable, and well utilised (what you’d expect from a movie like this). Everybody’s voice acting is very good; the emotional expressions mixed with the great deliveries from practically everybody really helps sell a lot of the movies more touching moments. The plot’s structure allows the characters to have elements that are new for this type of movie and really add to the overall experience; the dynamic of Raya’s extreme distrust and Sisu’s extreme trust is a nice combination, Namaari is actually given a fair amount of time to be more than just an antagonist, the movie doesn’t have just one bad guy and it’s a story that doesn’t require one, etc. Most of the character faults are typical problems with most Disney characters and its mainly comes down to how they are portrayed.  Raya is not a bad lead at all; she’s likeable, has a good backstory, has moments of being sympathetic as well as being a cool action heroine, the voice acting from Kelly Marie Tran is very good, and she sports a really good design and a nice new lesson for a Disney princess, but it does slightly feel like her personality is tied to the lesson as oppose to allowing her to have a full identity, she doesn’t have that simple distinct nature that other Disney princesses have. Sisu mainly struggles whenever she’s the dragon; when she’s a human, she’s got a great design, her facial expressions are fantastic and Awkwafina’s voice fits much better, whereas the dragon’s design is a bit generic, and a lot of the comedy doesn’t really work. The companions that Raya pick up along the way, including a fast-talking 10-year-old entrepreneur named Boun (voiced by Izaac Wang), a formidable warrior with a heart of gold named Tong (voiced by Benedict Wong) and a literal baby con artist named Little Noi (voiced by Thalia Tran)  feel like they could be annoying upon first seeing them, but they have that great likeable energy that comes through their character design and voice acting, and while not much of them is seen, they’re characters you’d want to see more of.

It’s already been mentioned how fantastic the world-building in this movie is and how it effortlessly introduces the audience to this new environment so quickly and cleanly, but it also helps that each location is gorgeous to look at thanks to the brilliant visuals on display. Nowadays, Disney animation is normally going to look fantastic (it’s a given at this point), so there has to be a unique spin to make it more interesting than just looking good. Thankfully, the movie is dripping with Eastern Asian culture that helps all the locations feel so fresh, vibrant, and distinct. It looks pretty but etched with elements of grittiness that makes it perfect for the movie’s harsher edge; It’s a Disney environment mixed with shades of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the landscapes look more realistically beautifully than fantastically beautifully, there’s a lot of effective lighting and mood-setting through the choice of weather, it’s a perfect combo for this movie. It’s also got amazing scale and presence; it really adds to the film’s atmosphere and tone with how it presents certain shots to give it this pretty epic edge. The action is also something that’s really nice to see in this kind of movie; Mulan started the trend, but it was still treading water with a new idea, this takes full advantage of displaying its fight scenes much like a typical martial arts movie. Its nicely choreographed, the camera work by Rob Dressel and Adolph Lusinsky allows for some great shots that shows everything clearly, the usage of different martial arts styles is a nice touch, and it just adds a cool element to this environment and this story. The comedy can be a bit hit and miss, and even when it isn’t too bad, it’s nothing special and only really helps in making things a little more likeable. Nothing is really laugh-out loud funny and when a joke fails, it’s in that painful ‘’American sitcom’’ kind of way where they constantly drag it out hoping for a pity laugh and that can be really annoying. Thankfully, it’s not too painful and as the movie goes on, its tone balances out a lot better.

Raya and the Last Dragon, despite how divisive the response for the movie has been, is a definite positive direction for Disney to be taking at this point in time. Anything original from them is already going to be better, but this movie clearly had a lot of passionate people behind it who wanted to bring something refreshing but familiar. It could easily be one of the true greats, but it has a few things that aren’t perfect that hold it back from that area. As a whole, it feels more in line with those beginner movies; like The Little Mermaid, Cinderella or even The Princess and the Frog; movies that definitely had problems but laid out the groundwork for even better movies to overtake them. It has a great story with a nice new message, fantastic world-building with great cultural usage, it has likeable characters with a great voice-cast, and it has stellar animation with great fight sequences. If you aren’t fully sure what to think, check it out and see for yourself, it might surprise you with what it offers.  If we can put up with the annoying moments from Genie and Mushu, we can put up with someone lesser comedy here too.