Raya and the Last Dragon is a post-apocalyptic film. A warrior must undo her mistake, that has pushed an already broken world into a path to final destruction. She must find the pieces of a broken gem, now held by her country’s enemies, and re-unite them to defeat a monstrous invasion. Like, literally a global invasion of creatures that resemble The Smoke Monster from Lost only more evil. She is looking for help from a great dragon, who turns out to be… not all that great. In the end, enemies must learn to trust one another or there will be no one left.
Not a stunningly original plot, but that isn’t the point. This movie is about amazing fight choreography, and animation that will absolutely knock your socks off with its sophistication and beauty. Worldbuilding and design, perspective, directing, and voice acting. It is ranked number 10 out of the top 72 Disney/Pixar movies on Rotten Tomatoes after all. And it’s plenty kid-friendly (lookin’ at you, Hunchback)
Also, I kinda liked the dragon. And the sound track, which carries the emotional tone of the movie as well as a Disney film should. Raya is not a musical though; no catchy songs.
The characters make use of anachronistic speech from the 2020’s, which leaves me wondering: it that also true of Snow White and the 1930’s? Lady And The Tramp and the 1950’s? Hunchback and the ’90’s? Well… pretty much, but if we can make allowances for that. It’s hard to come up with a perfectly timeless dialect. I do wish they’d tone it down, just a little.
Every adventure story has a moment of maximum darkness, when all hope is lost, but Raya went deeper into that moment than usual. I turned to Mrs and asked, “This IS a Disney movie, right?”
But don’t worry… it is.
georgewiman 