“Raya and the Last Dragon” Movie Review by Brooke Daugherty
March 18, 2021 6:49 pm |
Raya and the Last Dragon isn’t Disney’s first animated film featuring an Asian princess, but it is the first in over 20 years. Mulan premiered in 1998 with the titular character and Aladdin in 1992 with Princess Jasmine, but other than that, no other animated Disney movie has centered around Asian characters. Mulan had more Asian actors than Aladdin, but most were secondary characters. Raya has nearly a full cast of Asian American faces behind the voices with a couple British actors of Asian descent thrown in.
Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada directed the film with some co-directing from Paul Briggs and John Ripa. The animation is gorgeous and the scenes are laid out beautifully. If I had one complaint about this film, it would be the editing. For the most part, it was perfect, but a couple times felt like when a TV show cuts off for a commercial break at the wrong time. At a runtime of an hour and forty-seven minutes, twenty to thirty more seconds total to let those couple of scenes breathe wouldn’t have hurt the film at all.
The voice acting is superb and with a cast as stacked as this, it’s no surprise. Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina play the titular Raya and Last Dragon respectively; Daniel Dae Kim voiced Raya’s father, Chief Benja; Antagonist Namaari played by Gemma Chan; Benedict Wong as Tong; and Izaac Wang as Boun in one of the best child performances witnessed in a while.
Raya and the Last Dragon is a beautiful original animated film from Disney. If you have the chance to see it socially distanced in the theater, do it. You won’t be sorry.
PCL Rating: Tupperware
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: FRESH
Categorised in: Movie Reviews
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