Raya and the Last Dragon (2021 | USA | 114 minutes | Don Hall & Carlos López Estrada)
A story that is quite literally about how the real journey is about the friends we made along the way, Raya and the Last Dragon follows a familiar Disney formula while still taking some new paths.
These new paths come in the form of a story that is vaster in scope and tone than much other Disney fare before it. Even as it is wrapped in a light and playful outer shell, like that of the giant doglike pillbug that its heroine rides throughout the film, there is a center that is both cynical as well as reflective in a way that offers something more.
The story follows Raya, the fractured realm of Kumandra’s last hope for survival after a mysterious evil force wipes out all of the dragons and threatens all of society along with it. An added challenge is that a priceless dragon gem has been broken into pieces in an early skirmish, dividing the world over who can reclaim all the pieces. This setting draws heavily from Southeast Asian culture in its visual imagery as well as some of its casting. Raya is voiced by Kelly Marie Tran in a role that, above all else, shows better respect to her talents than a previous science fiction franchise, *coughs* Star Wars, which vastly underserved her character.
After the loss of her father, Raya must go ride her giant pill bug Tuk Tuk out to recover the scattered pieces of the dragon gem and restore order to a world that has tipped into chaos. Raya will travel from place to place collecting the various plot devices — I mean fragments of dragon gems — in order to better learn about herself along the way. She forms new unlikely alliances and friendships that will help her on her journey of self discovery. This crew includes a lone kid with a taste for cooking and a thieving baby with a gang of monkeys. Even as it is over the top and often silly, the narrative does fall into familiar patterns.
The story is a hero’s journey in the most literal sense. The path being undertaken is as much an emotional journey as a physical one. Raya reawakens the last remaining dragon who had previously been out of action for many lifetimes after saving humanity the first time around. It is believed that the dragons are the key to bring peace to the world. It soon becomes clear that for Raya it isn’t just about saving the world itself, but about a personal desire to restore a past that she may no longer be able to bring back. The central lesson is about learning to trust again.
Sisu the dragon, voiced by Awkwafina, is both a comedic relief character while also being the emotional core of the story. There are moments where Sisu feels like a vehicle to do a lot of jokey schtick, which doesn’t always land, though she also acts as an optimistic and trusting counterbalance. As the last remaining dragon, inexperienced and naive Sisu serves as a juxtaposition to Raya’s apocalypse-hardened outlook.
Raya has seen a deep darkness in the world that Sisu has not after her and her siblings sacrificed themselves to protect the world. This comes not just in the evil force that is threatening the realm, but in the other people that inhabit it. Nowhere is this more clear than in Gemma Chan’s scene-stealing Namaari, a sworn enemy of Raya who is also looking to reconstruct the dragon gem. Namaari and the kingdom she oversees would be worthy of their own movie, though in this story she acts mostly as a foil to Raya. In their shared youthful past, Raya trusted Namaari and her betrayal left her largely distrustful of most anything.
“We can tear each other apart or we can come together and build a better world” is a line that is uttered early on, which acts as a thesis statement for the story. While not the most subtle of an idea, in establishment or execution, the fact that the film is willing to focus on a more weighty idea is worth praising. It takes itself seriously enough to reflect on the evils that far too often can plague our world. This evil comes not from some big bad villain, instead stemming from all too familiar greed and distrust.
That is where the initial cynicism and the film’s willingness to really reflect on that mindset stands out. The film is visually vibrant with each new location, named after different parts of dragons, that are all distinct in design and consistently stunning in animation. However, the tone can border on bleak in how it views humanity and the tendency for opposing groups to destroy each other in pursuit of their goals.
Obviously, this is still a children’s movie that is rated PG, so the tone doesn’t go too far into the abyss. Still, the film portrays humanity’s self-destructive nature as one that trends toward annihilation. The film initially posits that we can be the source of our own demise and bring about the end of all that we love if we let it. Disney films are no stranger to heavy stuff, but this film really seemed willing to grapple with some more complicated ideas even if it doesn’t quite have the nerve to see it through to the end.
Much of this may stem from the fact that it is co-directed by Carlos López Estrada, who also has a story credit. Estrada previously directed 2018’s vastly overlooked Blindspotting that picked apart similar aspects of our very nature. It offered up answers that were truthful, no matter how hard it was to swallow. Raya and the Last Dragon is nowhere near as ambitious as that film though there are hints of a greater desire for depth struggling to burst through to the surface.
That depth is conveyed in the quieter moments, like early on when Raya is alone in the desert. The scope of the landscape inspires awe as Raya cuts across the treacherous terrain on her giant pillbug. It is still a silly image though it portrays her life as being that of a nomad who grew up alone over six long years of searching while subsisting primarily on jackfruit jerky. It is a time period full of narrative opportunities that the story regrettably glosses over.
While unreasonable to expect such a conventional film to do this, it is a missed opportunity to avoid delving into this isolation. What journeys did Raya go on? What was it like being alone for so long? All of these thematically rich questions go unanswered in service of a far too conventional ending. Such a conclusion makes one wish that there could have been a story to tell that was still ambitious in scope, while being stripped down in spectacle.
It is still a nice spectacle to look at. It just wraps itself up too neatly for some of the complicated questions it was setting up for itself. It all gets lost in the shuffle of a story that isn’t willing to be as patient as one would hope. While not an entirely missed opportunity, it still could have been so much more.
Raya and the Last Dragon is available on Disney+ and in select theaters beginning March 5. (Photos from Disney)