‘DRAGON’ DELIGHT
‘Raya’ works magic with familiar formulas
“Raya and the Last Dragon” comes from Walt Disney Animation Studios light on its feet, propelled by fast, witty asides and clean-lined storytelling. It isn’t so much an original as it is a “familiar but highly satisfying.” Also: not a sequel! How did that happen?
Like “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Kung Fu Panda” (both from the rival DreamWorks animation house), “Raya and the Last Dragon” combines mythologies and ideas from all over, in this case pulling ideas from various pan-Asian and mostly South Asian influences. And like Disney’s own “Moana,” this is a princess movie without the usual Anglo trappings of a princess movie.
Long ago in the mythical land of Kumandra, dragons coexisted with the human element. Then came the Druun, a miserable, swirly, “mindless” plague “born of human discord.” (Pick your real-world metaphor.) The Druun turns humans into stone and fractures Kumandra into separate, warring kingdoms. The dragon-protectors’ power has been concentrated, Infinity Stone-like, into a single, all-powerful gem, its pieces now scattered among the kingdoms.
Already you may be glazing over if you’ve spent too many hours within the Marvel Cinematic Universe or after rewatching “The Lord of the Rings” once too often. You needn’t know much more about the plot of “Raya and the Last Dragon.” Our heroine, voiced deftly by Kelly Marie Tran, is on a quest to retrieve the separate dragon gemstones. She gathers a motley crew as she travels. Temporarily (she hopes) orphaned after her father (Daniel Dae Kim) turns to stone himself, Raya joins forces with a similarly orphaned boy (Izaac Wang) who runs a shrimp boat restaurant, menacing but secretly cuddly tough guy Tong (Benedict Wong) and a nefarious pickpocket street urchin who pals around with monkeys.
The ringer, of course, is the last dragon of the title, Sisu, who becomes Raya’s confidant, sounding board and shape-shifting life coach. (Suggested alternate movie title: “How Your Dragon Trains You.”) Rock solid and visually supple, “Raya and the Last Dragon” makes its leap into a higher realm thanks largely to one vocal performance: Awkwafina as Sisu, rattling off rejoinders and stream-of-consciousness notions like a mythical beast raised on the Robin Williams version of “Aladdin.” She’s fantastic and, as “The Farewell” proved, her dramatic instincts are no less sharp than her comic wiles.
The film’s central human relationship relays the story of Raya and her warrior-princess frenemy Namaari, voiced by Gemma Chan. They’re natural-born adversaries, according to the world they’ve known their whole lives. How they find a different path steers the story in an intriguing and emotionally resonant way.
The directors are Don Hall (“Moana,” “Big Hero 6”) and, relatively new to animation, Carlos Lopez Estrada of the criminally undervalued “Blindspotting.” They work from a script by “Crazy Rich Asians” screenwriter Adele Lim and playwright Qui Nguyen. The world of “Raya and the Last Dragon” is simple but imaginative, built for mobility. In our first sight of Raya she’s tooling along a desert landscape “Mad Max” style on what appears to be the Tesla edition of an armadillo. Later, as Raya and crew dream up plans to boost the crucial remaining dragon gem fragment, the movie morphs into a heist picture. A good one.
How’s the animation? Beautiful and limited, I’d say. The style favors an adroit mixture of photorealistic landscapes and backdrops, contrasted with the customary doeeyed, vaguely frictionless human faces. It’s the house style for so much American animation. Nothing new, even if the film’s color palette of blues and magentas is pleasing. Also, a story of dragons deserves more distinctive-looking creatures; Sisu is cute, but dangerously “My Little Pony”-adjacent.
The vocal characterizations courtesy of Awkwafina and Tran lend so much skillfully wrought feeling to the material, the movie’s occasional bumps don’t much matter.
The lessons of unity, understanding and love feel especially welcome these days. Raya runs the show, and the show has a little something for everyone.