The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
‘RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON’
Animation and visuals are breathtaking, storytelling somewhat lacking
You had to figure the folks at Disney thought they had something special on their hands in the animated adventure “Raya and the Last Dragon.”
As they did with their much-hyped live-action update of “Mulan” in September, they are giving “Raya” a release on streaming platform Disney+ that requires an additional $30 fee for “Premier Access,” which will make the movie available for a few months before it included in a regular subscription to the service.
This was not the course taken with “Soul,” from Disney subsidiary Pixar Animation Studios, which debuted for all Disney+ subscribers on Christmas Day.
And “Raya” — a Walt Disney Animation Studios product that is getting a simultaneous theatrical release this week — is a notch above the somewhat disappointing “Soul,” which, to be fair, did just win for Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globe Awards.
As with “Soul,” where “Raya” truly shines isn’t in its ability to tell a compelling story but in its visuals, which simply are jaw-dropping. It’s fair to expect digitally animated films to look better as time goes on and technologies and processes evolve, but wow. This film is gorgeous. The Southeast Asianinspired tale it spins — about a young woman’s quest to restore her land to the wondrous state it’s not seen for centuries — falls somewhere between fine and good.
It hooks you with the briefest of introductions to a grown Raya (laudably voiced by Kelly Marie Tran of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”), traversing somewhat-barren ground aboard a vehicle we later will come to understand.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says. “A lone rider. A dystopian world. A land that’s gone to waste.” She then explains that 500 years ago, Kumandra was whole, with people living side-by-side with water dragons, which brought both rain and peace. “It was paradise,” she says.
But then came the Druun, “a mindless plague that spread like wildfire,” consuming life the land had to give and turning people into stone. The dragons were able to defeat the Druun — after Sisu, the famed last dragon, conjured all her magic into a powerful gem — but they were lost in the battle.
We then travel back in time to meet a younger Raya, whose father, Benja (Daniel Dae Kim of “Lost” and “Hawaii Five-O”), is preparing her to help guard the gem, which resides in their land, Heart. (Kumandra long ago splintered into five independent regions, each named after a part of a dragon, such as Fang and Talon.)
Raya passes her proud father’s test but then is perplexed when he tells her he has invited leaders from the other lands — all of whom view Heart with some disdain — for a feast. Let’s just say Raya was right to worry, the evening going very badly and leading to Raya leaving Heart with a piece of the gem and her little friend Tuk Tuk (Alan Tudyk, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”).
(Tuk Tuk is a great invention by the filmmakers. “Part-pill bug, part-put, part-high speed off-road vehicle,” as the production notes describe him, he is what Raya is riding in the film’s opening moments, and the round, shelled creature serves as her main mode of transportation.) Raya is on a quest she hopes will lead to a reborn Sisu. Meanwhile, she is being hunted by another very capable female, Namaari (Gemma Chan of “Crazy Rich Asians”), who betrayed her on that fateful night years earlier. Raya does, of course, encounter Sisu, and the film changes significantly in tone at this point, not for the better.
Our expectations are subverted, as we’ve been led to expect something very different from this legendary warrior. Voiced by Akwafina (“Crazy Rich Asians”), the shapeshifting Sisu is goofy, playful and largely unsure of herself. The character — and Awkwafina’s performance of her — is likely to be more to some tastes than others. (The same can be said for the dragon’s design, arguably the film’s one visual misstep.)
Other allies are gained along the way, most notably young, entrepreneurial shrimp boat captain Boun (Izaac Wang, “Good Boys”) and Tong (Benedict Wong, “Dr. Strange”), a large, gruff and lonely woodsman.
As “Raya and the Last Dragon” marches toward our heroes’ inevitable confrontation with the Druun, the idea of trust both in others and oneself is explored, and it’s the kind of worthwhile theme an animated film needs to mine to be memorable. Still, you wish co-writers Qui Nguyen, an award-winning playwright, and Adele Lim (“Crazy Rich Asians”) had found a way to elevate the tale into the same lofty realm where its visual artistry resides. “Raya” is co-directed by the intriguing duo of Don Hall, who co-helmed Disney’s spectacular 2014 animated work “Big Hero 6,” and Carlos López Estrada, who made his feature directorial debut with acclaimed 2018 live-action comedydrama “Blindspotting.”
As with this film’s writers, their work is strong if not quite exceptional. Take for instance a late-game sword fight between Raya and Namaari; it’s excellently choreographed but overly edited.
“Exceptional” is an adjective that should be reserved for all the artists and technical folks working below them. It may sound silly, but spend some time looking at the characters’ hair to get an idea of the visual detail baked into “Raya and the Last Dragon.” Time will go on and technologies and processes will continue to evolve, but it’s hard to fathom how future animated films will look better than this one.
“Raya and the Last Dragon” may not soar quite as high as Sisu at her strongest and surest, but it’s well worth seeing — be that now or when it’s available to all Disney+ subscribers on June 4.