RICHARD LU

Raya and the Last Dragon is an amazing film. The visuals were beautiful, the soundtracks were gorgeous and the cultural inspirations were endless. The animation was clean and reflected the highest level of expertise expected by Disney. You could see that there was a lot of money put towards this movie. However, there are issues with the movie that must be noted. To minimize spoilers for readers, I'll keep my problems with the movie as vague as possible. But please continue with caution. For one, the pacing is very odd. Some parts of the movie went way too quickly. I couldn't embrace the scenes entirely, so it felt like those moments had no importance to the overarching story. Yes, there's a running time quota, but some scenes could have been changed to fit the pacing better. Secondly, the characters lacked proper depth. They were only chess pieces, not their own king or queen. Understandably, it's a Disney movie and you must take everything with a grain of salt. However, there could have been more focus on the characters as individuals, not just archetypes to fit a mold. Finally, the themes were too forced. When I mean "the themes were too forced," I mean they were literally given to the viewers on a silver platter. You will notice it; death being one that is repeated over and over. Again, it's Disney so these themes have to be pushed. But the lack of subtlety made the movie too cliche even for children. It lost most of its originality. Overall, I would give this movie a 7/10. This is another one of those fast food movies: great for families who want to have fun, but terrible for individuals looking for a quality film to binge. Again, I must concede that the film is remarkable visually. However in terms of storytelling, it lacks significantly.