Skip to main content

Raya and The Last Dragon: An Unexpected Gem

 

 Alright so, ever since this film got announced and I saw character designs and all, I don’t know why but it felt like it was a dlc (extra downloadable content for a video game) but for a movie. It felt like a dlc for Moana, and I’m not like the biggest fan of Moana but, I love animation and so I try my best to always see animated films and that’s why I’m here today after quite the hiatus to tell you, that Raya and The Last Dragon is pretty damn great!

  Okay so one of my favorite things about this film was how they used a good chunk of its opening to set up what goes on later. I know that’s meant to be a norm but most animated films don’t get to do that cause their runtime is usually about an hour and a half (including credits). The film clearly explains the lore and history of the land, shows us Raya’s personality and her motivations for the future and I have to hand it to Kelly Marrie Tran (Rose Tico from the Star Wars Sequels) because she’s absolutely brilliant as Raya and cements her as one of my favorite Disney heroines thus far. Awkwafina is also great as Sisu balancing humor with a shocking amount of heart. 

 This film is obviously inspired by Asian culture and it shows it beautifully through the gorgeous scenery of different lands, beautiful costume designs and the masterful fight choreography. Speaking of fight choreography, for an animated feature film I don’t know why they went this hard but I honestly admire the people who worked on it because it was so freaking awesome. I found myself getting so excited every time a fight scene came up because each one kicked ass, no pun intended.

 Another thing this films excels in is portraying characters as humans first and foremost rather than good or bad. I really appreciated Raya, Sisu, her companions, Boun (who I loved so so much), Tong, Noi, the adorable pets as well as the extremely badass Namaari. I think they are all so well written  and I really appreciated how they explored how humans capable of great bad and great good without it coming out as corny or lackluster. 

 There’s no musical number in this film but I think the score for the film really hits especially during the more emotional scenes. There’s a great level of consistency that showers through out the film, it feels like a real world with real people who live in it and while that’s usually the goal for fantasy films, it’s not usually achieved with the exception of films like the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter franchise. 

 The last act of this film surprised me the most, there’s a scene where a certain person does something and it’s so totally out of the usual Disney formula we’re used to and I feel like it elevated an already good film to a really really good film. To explain it more simply, this film feels like a Pixar venture rather than just Disney. 

 To sum things up, Raya and the Last Dragon is a very good film with a good message, an amazing protagonist, talented voice cast, beautiful animation and a run time that doesn’t slow down or rush things. I highly recommend seeing it if you’re looking for something cool to check out! 

 

Written By

Comments

  1. A. Hugh. G. Dick4 July 2021 at 01:36

    My God I loved this movie. It was one of the best animation I've seen if not the best.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

The Popular Posts

Army Of The Dead: A Crazy Roller Coaster!

Written By
  Visionary director, Zack Snyder comes through with a new release following his long awaited director’s cut of 2017’s Justice League. This time (and thanks to Netflix), he has full creative control of the entire film.    Army of the dead was shot, written and directed by Zack himself and is his return to horror, the same genre of his first feature film “Dawn of the Dead”. Army of the dead is an extremely ambitious film with the potential for multiple sequels and spinoffs besides the already announced ones. I’ll try my best to make this a spoiler free review although I make talk or hint about certain things that happen in the film.   The film tells the story of a team of skilled men and women coming together to go to closed off zombie infested Las Vegas to retrieve millions of dollars from a vault before the US government nukes the entire place and its zombie residents. Each member of this team standout and feel like real people with personalities. There’s a lot...
3 comments
Read more

UMBRELLA ACADEMY: WEIRD IS GREAT!

Written By
   I feel like this is the first time i have made a post about a show that just got released this early. Truth be told, i missed a class trying to binge all ten episodes of the new netflix show;  Doom Patrol  (that was a joke), sorry Umbrella Academy.   Honestly speaking, i find it truly intriguing how rare and fascinating how two really good and similar shows like Doom Patrol and Umbrella Academy got released during the same period of time. With the Netflix marvel shows being cancelled, i think its safe to say we'll still have our dosage of realistic superheroes on the small screen.   Based on the Dark Horse comic of the same name, Umbrella Academy tells the story of a group of kids who wan born on the same day in 1989 to mothers who weren't pregnant before that day. A rich man named Sir Reginald Hargreeves who managed to adopt seven kids out of the forty-three that were born on that day. With six of them(allegedly) having extraordinary pow...
3 comments
Read more

DOOM PATROL

Written By
   The second DC Universe Live Action show; Doom Patrol just premiered and I must say, it was a really interesting watch. Following the lives of the Doom Patrol, a team of very strange heroes who we first encounter during an episode of Titans, the show sheds more light on how they came to be the "freaks" that they are now through a brilliant narrator who ties into the episode and beautiful acting from every member of the cast.   If you saw them in Titans, you might have been pissed off by the actor who played Chief there. I thought he was horrible and the show recast him with a much better and intense actor who carries each scene he's in. With just the first episode, I was very impressed by how funny, serious and emotional it was. Unlike the show before it, Doom Patrol managed to start off on a high note with so many possibilities, it actually manage to do the whole team dynamic better than the Titan show.  I could actually feel the bond amongst each member ...
4 comments
Read more

BLACK PANTHER: SPOILER REVIEW

Written By
  If you haven ’ t seen black panther,I don ’t think you’d understand this post because I’ll be talking about things that happened rather than explaining them like most spoiler reviews. With that being said,let us march on. We saw the bright side of wakanda as well as it ’s hidden dark history and so now,its time to talk about. I’ll start of by talking about who everyone is talking about and that is no one else but Erik Killmonger.   Erik Killmonger and Ulysyss Klaw are now my favorite villains. In fact, unlike many I actually preferred Klaw as a villain but maybe that was because Killmonger was more of an antagonist(yes,they can be different)to me. Klaw just wanted vibranium so he could fuck shit up but Erik’s grievance was more personal and it challenged T’challa’s ideals because who Erik had become was a result of his father’s(King T’chaka) mistake I’ll go into that in a bit.  Black Panther shows us just how impressive Wakanda is because it’s ...
Post a Comment
Read more