Written by Joenn
Note: This review was submitted and written by another person, so credit goes to them for their time and energy for creating this review. This review may contain some spoilers.
All art is a product of its time, but it’s a rare thing to see a story come along that so perfectly resonates with the emotional needs of its audience as Raya and the Last Dragon. It’s early March, 2021. We, the audience, have been cooped up inside for a year now with precious little contact with the outside world. Raya went through production and post-production during 2020, so all of the voice capture and animation was done from home. The makers of this movie, all of them, have been going through the same troubles we have. They know the story we need to hear right now.
Raya is a heroic fantasy story from Walt Disney Animation Studios, set in the fictional land of Kumandra. It draws inspiration from Southeast Asian cultures and myth to create its world, and worldbuilding is one of this movie’s greatest strengths. Spoilers follow, but I’ll try not to spoil any details that aren’t established within the first half-hour.
The World
The land of Kumandra surrounds a large inland sea that is shaped like a dragon. Its people are divided into five tribes, each one named after a part of the dragon: Fang, Heart, Spine, Talon, and Tail. The tribes used to be unified as a single nation, but this nation fractured after the arrival of malevolent spirits called the Druun.
The Druun are introduced to us early in the story. They appear as amorphous clouds of
smoke that seem to glow from a sourceless purple light. They’re completely mindless; they never speak or show any signs of intelligence. If a Druun touches a human, it will petrify them and then replicate itself, and each copy will continue to hunt for more humans.
In other words, they’re virulent.
The Druun can’t be fought, but they can be repelled by pieces of a gem that was forged by dragons. Upon learning this, the chiefs of the five tribes scramble to horde these gems, and sequester themselves in isolation.
Does that sound familiar to anyone?
The Characters
Our protagonist is a young swordswoman named Raya, of the Heart tribe. For reasons I
won’t spoil here, she blames herself for the world’s current state, and she sees it as her
responsibility to set it right. But living in this world has taken its toll on her, and she has some serious trust issues. You could call her paranoid.
Raya possesses one of the five gem pieces, and she believes that if she can collect the other four, the Druun will be vanquished. So her goal is to travel to all five tribes and steal their gems either through guile or force, because she can’t trust anyone else to do the right thing. The question the movie asks is simple: Can Raya learn to trust again?
Joining Raya on her quest is Sisu, the last dragon. In many ways, she is Raya’s complete
opposite; she’s ditzy, upbeat, naive, and very gullible. She’s like your frazzled aunt who never figured out what to do with her life after college.
Opposing Raya is Namaari, princess of the Fang tribe. She’s kind of a fascinating character because we can always see her struggling internally between what her conscience tells her to do, and what her duty to Fang demands of her.
Along the way, Raya also crosses paths with survivors of the other three tribes. In Tail she meets Boun, an orphan boy who runs a fishing boat. In Talon she meets Noi, an orphan girl with three pet monkeys. And in Spine she meets Tong, a lonely warrior. In meeting these characters, we begin to realize something: In this world, everyone has lost someone. Everyone feels isolated and alone.
Now, if what I’ve just described sounds like a downer, fear not; Raya is also filled with levity to balance out its weighty themes. Sisu in particular is a giant doe-eyed goofball. And don’t worry, it’s a Disney movie; it has a happy ending.
The Flaws
As much as I appreciate Raya, it’s not perfect. If I were to summarize its flaws into one
word, this movie is stuf ed. The film is two hours long, but every scene feels just a little bit rushed because there is so much story to tell. It feels like the story would have been better served if it had been presented as a show, since it already divides itself up into six episodes.
The movie is also stuffed with elements that have clearly been borrowed from other
franchises. Sisu looks like she jumped out of an episode of My Little Pony. Noi is a
hypercompetent toddler straight out of Boss Baby. And there are two sequences toward the end of the movie that were pulled straight from The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. The parts of this movie that are original work very well. The parts that have been borrowed from other movies are obvious, obnoxious, and out of place.
And as a minor quibble, the movie has to break one of the rules established as part of its worldbuilding in order to earn that happy ending.
The Virtues
Aside from the simple virtues of knowing its theme and executing it well, the movie is
visually stunning. The main characters are expertly animated and the acting is emotionally moving. The fight choreography is stellar as well; I just wish we got to see a bit more of it.
Overall, I believe Raya’s virtues outweigh its flaws. This movie matters to the emotional
state of the world today. It deserves to be seen and enjoyed by those little ones in your life. I encourage you to go out and see it. Just please remember to be safe and wear a mask.
Links Used
- Some character images provided from The Disney Wiki
- Disney.com
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