But with all the mistrust and treachery, can she and her shape-shifting dragon (Awkwafina) put their world to right? Raya, riding her pangolin-ish pillbug steed, searches the rivers for the dragon, and finally finds Sisu. Five states each keep a shard from the stone, Droon returns to devastate the land and Raya makes it her life’s mission to figure out if there’s a surviving dragon, and if she can piece the stone back together and end the plague. Namaari grows up to be a nemesis voiced by Gemma Chan.

Raya is tricked by the Fang girl Namaari, leading to the stone shattering. It’s kept in a temple in the land of Heart, one of the five nations of the land that was broken when the last dragon died defending against the Droon (a vividly visual rendition of a plague).īut the gem, a reminder of the dragons’ sacrifice, is coveted by the other states - Fang, Talon, Tail and Spine - which broke up and took the names of the parts of a dragon.

We meet Raya, voiced by Kelly Marie Tran (the recent “Star Wars” trilogy), apprenticed to her Guardian of the Dragon Gem father ( Daniel Dae Kim). Accidentally a tad on-the-nose, and eyebrow-raising in theme? Oh yes. The story is a made-up mash-up of Pan-Asian/Southeast Asian myths hanging on learning to “trust” people again, and features a plague that has decimated the land and a heroine whose lifelong pal is a pet pangolin, the pill-bug armadillo which the Chinese government blames for the global pandemic COVID-19. That said, “Raya” is a pleasant enough kids’ adventure - “Raiders of the Lost Ark” meets “Mulan” who is now a “Tomb Raider.”

The strain shows, and slang is no substitute for actual humor - sight gags or funny lines. “BOOM goes the dynamite,” which even the kids have moved on from, thank heavens. She’s voiced by the comic actress Awkwafina, so the pale blue dragon lets us know “I’m gonna be real with you, I’m not the BEST dragon,” that “I got water skills that kill!” and “I gotcha girl. That’s all over the script to Disney’s “Raya and the Last Dragon,” where a lot of effort was put into making the dragon, in particular, sound flip and hip. Nothing more instantly-dates an animated film for children than over-earnest efforts to contemporize the dialogue, to render it slangy and to-the-minute current.

The raya and the last dragon movie