While not a bad film, Raya and the Last Dragon presents shallow character development while utilizing Disney’s tried-and-true formula of hero + conflict = growth.
The movie, directed by Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada, is Disney’s latest animated adventure and stars Featuring Kelly Marie Tran as the voice of Raya and Awkwafina as the voice of Sisu the Dragon.
Our story takes place in the fictional Kumandra, a land heavily inspired by real-world Southeastern Asian culture that reveres dragons as deities. Each region of Kumandra is named for a different part of a dragon’s body; Fang, Heart, Spine, Talon, and Tail. 500 years before the start of the movie, dragons and humans lived together harmoniously,
That was until an evil force swept across the land and turned people to stone. This is the Druun, an evil entity born of human discord. The dragons used their combined powers to create the Dragon Gem, a magical stone that holds the Druun at bay and was all turned to stone save for one: a water dragon named Sisu (Awkwafina).
The movie begins with Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) training with her father, Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim), leader of Heart, inside the chamber that holds the Dragon Gem. Benja is exactly what you would expect from a respected, well-intentioned leader. He wants to reunite the regions of Kumandra to have lasting peace and trust, which is a major theme of the movie. He invites the leaders of the regions to Heart for a feast and with talks of peace and prosperity among their people. Without spoiling too much of the movie, this obviously does not go as planned. The gem is broken into five pieces, and the leaders of each region obtain a chunk for themselves. What ensues afterward is a journey of fun, well-written humor, visually stunning environments, and action-packed fight scenes, despite the overall shallow, overplayed nature of the plot.
In typical Disney fashion, Raya is motivated by the loss of a parent whose lessons live on with her. Raya sets out to restore the remaining four pieces of the Dragon Gem to bring the stone victims back to life, and to unite Kumandra once more, following in her father’s footsteps.
The main theme of the movie is trust, and there are many parallels between Benja and Sisu in that regard. Benja wanted to trust members of the other regions, but Raya has experienced firsthand what human greed and hubris can bring upon the world. Sisu also brings the theme of trust to the forefront of the store by suggesting Raya bring gifts to her rival leaders as a show of good-will, with Raya refusing due to her not being able to trust them to do what’s right with the Gem pieces. This leads to an internal conflict for Raya that troubles her for most of the movie.
Raya is one of the most visually stunning animated in recent memory. The environments are gorgeous and dynamic, the towns are populated and bustling, and the water truly does look real and breathtaking. The voice work is also one of the better aspects of the movie. Both Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina deliver stellar performances, the latter excelling in providing well-timed comic relief in an already fairly funny movie. Then there’s Tuk Tuk, a large armadillo-pill bug hybrid creature inspired by rickshaws, a popular mode of transportation in Southeastern Asia, voiced (if you can call it that) by Alan Tudyk, who might very well be the cutest animal companion of any Disney project.
While there are powerful moments of character development, I feel as though Disney missed an opportunity to easily flesh-out some of the side characters such as Tong (Benedict Wong) and Boun (Izaac Wang), who Raya and Sisu meet along their journey. All of Raya’s companions have been affected by the Druun’s powers, and we only really know this through visual cues and expositional dialogue. There is a point in the movie that felt obvious to me that they were going to expound on these character’s backstories; Between traveling from Spine to Fang, the gang could have stopped at Heart, Raya’s homeland, to visit her father (who has been turned to stone), to show the rest of the group Raya’s motivations, and to further motivate them to help her on her quest. A bit nitpicky, I know, but something that felt needed throughout.
Raya and the Last Dragon is fun for all ages experience, despite predictable and formulaic themes. Disney Animation Studios has perfected its process and sticks with it, but I’m ready for something new and more innovative from the studio. It was an enjoyable experience from start to finish, but despite amazing animation and Kelly Marie Tran’s performance, the tone and message felt shallow and the payoff felt unearned at times.
Raya and the Last Dragon was released in select theaters on March 5, 2021, and is currently available for streaming on Disney+ using the platform’s Premier Access option.
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