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Raya and the Last Dragon is a lavish adventure: Review

The film is gorgeous, adventurous, soulful and fun. Families willing to pay the overpriced cost will love it.
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New animated blockbusters from Walt Disney Animation studios are major events by reputation alone. Raya and the Last Dragon, brings back the action/adventure craze Disney had in the early 2000s. But here in the southeast asian fantasy land of Kumandra, they’ve made a film that’s so much better.

Stunning animation, lighting, music and voice acting all add up to a dazzling new film that families will have an easy time falling in love with. Maybe that’s why I’m upset it’s hindered by a basic plot and an insultingly expensive price to watch it in the first place.

What I love best about Raya is how this is a story with no source material and built from the ground up. Very briefly, Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) is a guardian from Kumandra, where five cities have been enemies for centuries. Evil spirits called Druun threaten to turn everyone to stone unless they are stopped.

Raya tracks down Sisu, the last water dragon (voice of Awkwafina), and they travel to the five cities to combine five pieces of a gem that has a world-saving power that Sisu can control. But they’ll all learn the real source of its power is trusting people different than us, even when it’s the hard thing to do.

The entire ensemble cast, including some really unique and fun new Disney characters, are a treat to listen to. Tran is the big standout as the title character, really showing off her talent as a voice actress. But she gets great partners to ping pong with Sisu the dragon and Gemma Chan’s Namaari.

Awkwafina has less screen time than some of the more prominent human characters; but her fast-paced comic slinging is the closest any Disney actor has come to matching the mastery of Robin Williams’ genie in Aladdin way back in 1991.

Kumandra’s five kingdoms are rich in detail and all fascinatingly unique, but the Disney animators didn’t stop at just the sets. If you thought the water effects and animation in Frozen II was impressive, wait until you see how Disney’s technology has evolved even further here. The artistry at work here is deeply, beautifully mystifying.

20 years ago, Disney released Atlantis: The Lost Empire, another fantasy action/adventure that didn’t stick with kids at the time but has since acquired a large, devoted fans base. The sets, score, character designs and grandeur in Raya evoke Atlantis greatly, so it’s little surprise the two films share several members on the creative team. Fans of Atlantis will go nuts for this.

One notable credit shared between the two films is James Newton Howard as the composer, returning to Disney after a long hiatus. Not only is this the best score he’s written, this might be the best musical score in any Disney movie. The gravitas, the variety of instruments, the re-layering and building of themes; it’s simply fantastic.

Photo: Walt Disney Studios
Photo: Walt Disney Studios

There’s really only two problems: one, a lot of the humour feels out of place. Sisu makes jokes about group projects in school and using a nightlight in just her first scene, and these modern jokes continue throughout.

If Kumandra is an ancient kingdom, for example, how are contemporary stuff and topics common knowledge? It’s a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit and is, frankly, more in line with a Dreamworks film than a Disney one.

The second (and much bigger problem) is the predictability of the plot. Qui Nguyen, best known for his debatably well received play She Kills Monsters, is the co-screenwriter with Adele Lim. The two of them are responsible for many of the modern joke problems mentioned above, but it’s also their fault the film (and cheesy dialogue) is so blatant.

All the grandeur, the animation, music and camera framing give us is diminished by how obvious the words are that get said through the whole story. Nguyen is guilty of this in all his plays, and that lack of restraint is painfully obvious here too. While the two wrote the script, they weren’t helped by having eight (!!) people credited on the story.

But just because the events are predictable and some jokes fell out of place doesn’t mean the sincerity is downplayed. The film’s moral is admirable, and the lack of subtlety does allow the message to have great clarity for younger audiences: anger and resentment can only be overcome through mutual trust and forgiveness.

One other thing that continues to discourage me is how so many of the films Disney has chosen to sideline or minimize the theatrical runs of are all based on communities of colour: first it was the all-Chinese cast of Mulan in September 2020 and then the majority African-American ensemble in Pixar’s Soul, both of which were sent to Disney+ exclusively and Mulan at a premium cost.

Now, in Raya, all but one named character in the entire movie is voiced by an Asian performer and many of them are from southeast Asia, which inspired the film’s fantasy setting. But a wide majority of audiences will see the film in their living rooms, or worse, on a laptop screen, giving this exciting moment in film history the same fanfare as a TV movie at best.

Is it an enjoyable and well-crafted film? Yes. But if your local cinema is closed, is it worth the nearly $40 price tag to watch it? No. Is it worth getting Disney+ and also adding the $12 monthly cost to access Raya and keep the film? Definitely no. (It's no coincidence the Disney+ subscription price went up just last week.)

Hopefully Raya and the Last Dragon is the last time Disney pulls the Premiere Access stunt. Or if it’s going to continue, let’s at least be more conscious of what movies we’re willing to relegate to the small screen.

At the end of the day, this is really a tale of two dragons: one is the slimy business side of things needed to see Raya. But the film itself is gorgeous, adventurous, soulful and fun - everything a good dragon should be.

Raya and the Last Dragon

8 out of 10

PG, 1hr 52mins. Animated Family Action Fantasy.

Directed by Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada.

Starring Kelly Marie Tran, Gemma Chan, Awkwafina, Isaac Wang, Benedict Wong, Sandra Oh and Daniel Dae Kim.

Now streaming at an added, premium price on Disney+ for subscribers (and playing in cinemas outside Halton Region.) The film will be free for Disney+ subscribers beginning June 4, 2021.