I only looked at the screen for half a second before the narration started “So you’re probably wondering how the world got like this”. I hadn’t even seen the world, just a blur. I wasn’t wondering. I didn’t care. Why did you assume that Raya?

Of course this was just a cliché. However, it should have been a hint. Besides I was watching a family movie after all. It just didn’t make a great start for me and made me worry about the rest of what I was going to watch.

The film starts off with a Lord of the Rings-esque lore narrative. The dragon land was taken in danger from these creatures which turn you into stone, however the dragons saved everyone, but the last one disappeared and only the orb keeps it safe. For one reason or another afterwards, the place splits into five parts, all named after the parts of the dragon. When she’s a kid, young Raya trusts the daughter of the leader of another faction, however this leads to the orb getting destroyed and the monsters being let lose. Six years later, we meet Raya as she goes to find the dragon and the five parts of the orb, kind of like horcruxes, but not. This film is basically Disney trying to make a toothless YA adventure.

As the film goes on, she gets together a rag-tag team of disney misfits, including weird sentient animal #83, annoying young male child #74, and weird hyper intellegent baby #3 with her three weird sentient animals #85-88. Oh and the dragon who is… going to teach her to trust others, despite the trusting getting them into this mess in the first place. It’s a disney film, you know how its going to go.

So far, I’ve sounded rather negative, but let’s get one big positive out of the way, this film looks incredible. Yes, that should be expected now, but comparing this film even to Frozen, the difference is huge. Each of the five places had their own unique interesting aesthetic. The use of light in this film was phenomenal and the whole experience was engrossing. The soundtrack was fine as well. The whole film was professionally made. Lots of love and attention went into it and it is unquestionably a good movie.

The problem is the usual Disney playing it safe. The characters are one dimensional and the heroic dragon is of course annoying and weak until the power of friendship saves the day. The comedy level is much more like an episode of new simpsons where quantity matters more than quality. However, that is only one person’s opinion.

There were plenty of children in the cinema and they laughed multiple times, because this is a family film. While I’m craving a fantastic new piece of art like Wolfwalkers or any other Cartoon Saloon masterpiece, these kids want to see the kung fu baby do kung fu, and that’s fine. Your family will enjoy the film, it’s good fun half term entertainment if you are waiting for that migraine tablet to kick in.

Summary

At worst another churned out formulaic output for the behemoth Disney machine. At best, a fun family movie for those who can’t face James Corden being a CGI rabbit. The film is beautiful to look at, however a lack of originality means it struggles to stand out from the crowd. [Grade: B-]

Raya and the Last Dragon is out on cinema, available to stream on Disney+ and is even out on DVD.

On a side note, while I wasn’t huge on this film, the Disney short before hand, Us Again, was absolutely beautiful. That’s worth looking for.