‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ check all the Disney boxes
In the made-by-committee, computer-generated effort “Raya and the Last Dragon,” all the Disney elements are in play. We have a sort of princess, in this case a young Asian woman named Raya (Kelly Marie Tran of “The Last Jedi”) on a quest to save her world, named Kumandra, from “the Druun” — shapeless masses of dark churning plague that turn living things to stone. She will do this by finding the “last dragon” and teaming with it to bring her people, including her warrior father, back to life. The creature is a water dragon named Sisu. It speaks, resembles an elongated magic pony and is voiced by Awkwafina. It is smaller than a Western dragon and pale blue with a violet tail. Although the events occur in some distant past, Raya and Sisu, who can morph into human form, talk in the slang of modern-day American
teenagers, which I found just weird. Ditto for the bugs with explosive flatulence.
We first meet Raya in the opening voice-over. She has ninja-like abilities and wields a sword. Her father, Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim), and she guard “the last remnant of dragon magic,” a blue glowing orb. Her father assembles all the tribes of dismantled Kumandra — Talon, Spine, Fang, Heart and Tail. But they all want the ball and a battle breaks out. The orb is broken up and a piece is taken by each of the tribes. Raya meets her “frenemy” Namaari (Gemma Chan), whose fabulously garbed and coiffed queen-like mother Virana (Sandra Oh) schemes for ever-greater power. Raya’s true best friend is a Smart Car-sized armadillo-like creature named Tuk Tuk (shapeshifter Alan Tudyk) that can roll itself into a ball and let Raya ride on top as it spins around. “Raya and the Last Dragon” is like a “Game of Thrones” spin-off with a big, organic version of the BB-8 droid from “Star Wars.”
The film has a lot of plot puzzle pieces that begin to overwhelm. I felt like there was going to be a quiz at the end. Awkwafina gives Sisu spunk, a comic delivery and admits to “not being the best dragon.” Part of the problem is that the “Druun” have (has?) no personality.
Give me a human any day over swirling masses of dark matter. The real scene stealers in “Raya and the Last Dragon” are Boun (Izaak Wang), a 10-year-old kid and chef, who runs a “Shrimporium” in a large boat that Raya and Sisu commandeer, and Little Noi (Thalia Tran), a toddler con artist, who runs with a trio of monkeylike thieves. Benja has charisma. But he spends most of the film stony. The visuals are nicely done and recall Asian art. The Chinese action-film-like martial arts sequences are the film’s greatest strength. Co-directors Don Hall (“Big Hero 6”) and Carlos Lopez Estrada (“Blindspotting”) excel in these scenes. Benedict Wong is welcome as the voice of a giant, goldenhearted warrior named Tong. But the truth is “Raya and the Last Dragon,” which has another two co-directors and 10 credited screenwriters and is entirely in English, could have been set anywhere.