Review of Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) by Kai82 — 05 Jun 2021

A really good animated movie that won me over with its characters, worldbuilding, themes and story. Also the art style and visuals are beautiful while they have also a great cast of voice actors. I was a bit late for a review because I did not want to pay extra money.

Now it is free to watch on Disney+ so I used the opportunity. The movie is a mixture from a fantasy adventure and buddy movie garnered with action and philosophical themes. The story starts 500 years before the events of the movie.

The land of Kumandra was a paradise where dragons and humans lived in harmony with the dragons being the guardians and helping the humans. One day the Druu arrived and starting to ravish the lands by turning all humans they touch into stone.

The dragons started a last ditch effort to save Kumandra but it had a huge price for them. The humans instead of joining together split and formed opposing fractions constantly at the brink of conflict.

Raya is the daughter of the Hearts tribes chief who are the guardians of an ancient gem. Her father wanted nothing more than the people to reunite to erase the conflicts, separation and distrust between the many factions.

With this the set up starts and also Raya’s (heroes) journey. The story is engaging as the characters have all believable motives, the progress is immersive and enjoyable and the twists are good. I must admit that firstly I thought they used a lot (=too much) of tropes but they proved me wrong later as it felt fresh and was enjoyable.

It avoided also the Disney princess tropes and at the end I was amazed by this. At the end the story was compelling and never felt boring. The characters are the greatest strength of the movie. Lets start with Raya voiced by Kelly Marie Tran who made the heroes journey.

She is fully relatable in her struggles and a great character. Her growth is excellent and she won me over easily. Sidenote: Dear Rian Johnson this is the talent you wasted. Sisu voiced by Awkwafina is the comic relief and so enjoyable.

Together with Raya they have a great dynamic and good chemistry. These two alone are worth watching the movie. It ends not here as we have little Noi voiced by Thalia Tran with her “gang” as hidden star of the movie.

She is cute, a loveable scoundrel and you should never underestimate her and her gang ;-). Then there is Boun voiced by Izaac Wang who is an orphan who is far wiser than his age make him look. Namaari voiced by Gemma Chan is Raya’s rival.

She made also a journey and has excellent character development. She and Raya are like two sides of a coin. Lastly for the team there is Tong who is a stoic and kind warrior. For the rest I will praise Virana voiced by Sandra Oh ans Benja voiced by Daniel Dae Kim for their smaller but good roles.

I almost forgot Tuk Tuk who is Raya’s best (animal) friend and a cute mixture of armadillo and pill bug. Like I already said the cast is amazing and fully delivers. Then there are the visuals and art style.

Everything looks great, made me want to explore the fauna and flora of the world including sight seeing for the locations. They put a lot of effort in it and I praise them for this. The soundtrack enhances the atmosphere and is truly great but I must admit that I did not look up on Google / YouTube for a specific song.

The action and fights feel amazing to watch even when the focus is not on them. Finally there are a lot of philosophical themes in the movie and a lot to discuss (Wont go into details because of spoilers).

Overall this was a truly excellent movie. It was immersive, enjoyable and had great humor atop of a great heroes journey. Might not be my favorite animated movie but is still worth a 10/10.