Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

United States of America

Animation, Family, Fantasy, Action, Adventure

Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios

Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Alan Tudyk, Izaac Wang, Benedict Wong

Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada

Don Hall, Kiel Murray, Adele Lim, Adele Lim

Taglines: A quest to save her world.

kung fu, sword, warrior woman, female protagonist, dragon, vietnamese, south asian, warrior

Long ago, in the fantasy world of Kumandra, humans and dragons lived together in harmony. But when an evil force threatened the land, the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity. Now, 500 years later, that same evil has returned and it’s up to a lone warrior, Raya, to track down the legendary last dragon to restore the fractured land and its divided people.

Reviews:

Author: Dark Jedi
Me and the kids watched this movie, one of the latest works of Disney, the other evening. I am pleased to be able to write that we found it quite good actually. It is always with some worry that I approach anything that comes from Disney these days given how their woke brigade have screwed things over lately. This movie however, seems to be more or less back to old and working recipes and free from (too much) woke nonsense. Maybe Disney execs have finally realized that letting the woke brigade, SJW’s and cancel culture have any say whatsoever in the creative processes hurts the bottom line. It is a good adventure story surrounded by lots of colorful characters, great scenery and lovely animated creatures. Just how a animated Disney movie should be. Some, probably self proclaimed, culture elite called it a “mediocre and repetitive story”. That is just such a load of bullshit but unfortunately the stupid algorithms on IMDb’s website calls it a “top review” and puts it on the front page of the movie (which is why I noticed it). Given that the movie currently hold a 7.4 rating on IMDb, 81% on TMDb and even the usually useless Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating well above 90% I’d say this bloke is a minority. Raya herself was quite likable but her main adversary was rather bland in my opinion. However, the characters surrounding Raya was making up for this. I quite liked Boun, I definitely liked Tong and I just loved the baby and the three small rascals causing mischief everywhere they went. The dragons where okay, Sisu was rather fun but they were all more like cuddly pets than real dragons with any real powers except for some parlor tricks. I did like the ending with all the Dragons being back though. In good Disney tradition there were plenty of side characters and environmental gadgets etc… that threw in some additional laughs here and there. As I wrote above, this was pretty much what would expect from Disney, the good Disney that we used to know that made fun movies for all ages.