Raya and the Last Dragon (PG)
Awkwafina voices a dragon and Kelly Marie Tran voices a warrior in Raya and the Last Dragon, a beautifully animated Disney movie in theaters and available via Disney+.
Similar to Mulan, this movie is available for an extra fee to Disney+ subscribers: $29.99 to see the movie before it becomes available to all subscribers on May 4. The fee allows you to watch it as many times as you like, something my kids took full advantage of this weekend.
The movie is set in the fictional land Kumandra, which feels like it is to Southeast Asia what Frozen’s Arendelle is to northern Europe. As Raya (voice of Tran) explains, Kumandra was once a land of harmony and dragons. But smoke creatures called the Druun sucked away much of the life from the land and turned people and dragons to stone. Sisu (voice of Awkwafina), the final dragon, used the last of her powers to create a gem that was able to banish the Druun and un-stone the people — but not the dragons.
The people responded to this brush with annihilation by fighting with each other over the gem and breaking into five kingdoms — Fang, Talon, Spine, Tail and Heart. Heart guarded the dragon gem, which caused mistrust in the other four kingdoms, who were constantly at odds with each other.
Thus is the state of things for centuries until Heart’s Chief Benja (voice of Daniel Dae Kim) tries to get all the kingdoms to come together. He has trained his daughter, Raya, to be a warrior who protects the dragon gem but also has tried to convince her that a rebuilding of trust between the five groups is necessary for the long-term survival of all people.
Naturally, Raya’s first attempts at trust — she thinks she’s found a friend in fellow dragon-fan Namaari (voice of Gemma Chan), the daughter of Fang leader Virana (voice of Sandra Oh) — do not go great. The dragon gem is cracked (with each group grabbing a piece) and the Druun are set loose upon the land again (and return to their turning-people-into-stone ways). Raya ends up on her own, out in the wilderness. (Raya and Namaari are maybe tweens or young teens during this flashback and six years older during the movie’s present day.)
After years of questing, Raya finds Sisu, who reawakens and admits that while she may be the “last” dragon she wasn’t really the “best” dragon, skills-wise. Raya and Sisu decide to undertake another quest: to find the pieces of the dragon gem, each of which contains a magical power from Sisu’s more powerful siblings, and bring them together to give Sisu the power to defeat the Druun (and bring back the people and dragons turned to stone and just generally save the world). Along the way, Raya gathers a crew: kid chef Boun (voice of Izaac Wang), baby pickpocket Noi (voice of Thalia Tran) and her hench-monkeys, and Spine warrior Tong (voice of Benedict Wong). Trailing this group are Namaari and her army. Fang is very determined to pursue a dragon-gem-as-deterrent-weapon policy and seeks to control more of the gem pieces.
Raya and the Last Dragon is absolutely beautiful to look at with some lovely world-establishing in its creatures (the colorful dragons, Raya’s armadillo-y pet), in its landscapes (which vary by kingdom), and in its mythology. Disney animation continues to wow with how it executes little details, such as how it renders water (which here behaves in all sorts of magical ways around dragons and their power). There is also something very Marvel-esque in the way it presents some of the action and the establishing shots, and in how the team came together (I got some serious Guardians of the Galaxy vibes at times).
The score is also very beautiful with melodies that really add some extra oomph to more emotional moments. This movie just missed this 2020’s Oscar contention cutoff (extended until Feb. 28 for the April awards) but I fully expect both this movie and its score to be in serious awards consideration next year.
I saw this movie several times throughout the weekend and while my initial reaction was to wonder if all the questing and history of Kumandra crowded the characters and their emotional arcs, I found that I appreciated this movie’s story-telling and rich world-building more with each viewing. These are solid characters; Raya, Sisu (who is sometimes a dragon and sometimes an Awkwafina-esque human) and Namaari all get interesting arcs that help examine the movie’s themes of trust and how a society at odds can find a way to work for the greater good and the difficulties of doing so. (Add this movie to the list of movies bringing me back to The Good Place and its “what we owe to each other” ruminations.) Even the supporting players (the con-artist baby and her monkeys, the Drax-like Tong, the cautious Virana) get enough space to add something to the emotional fabric of the story. It’s sophisticated stuff — delivered with visuals that look great no matter the size of the screen you’re seeing them on and in a kid-friendly way with the right amount of funny baby and animal antics. A
Featured photo: Raya and the Last Dragon (PG)