Review: "Raya and the Last Dragon"

“Raya and the Last Dragon” is bright and light and full of colors and joy -- and also not a little tragedy.

It’s said that all Disney animated movies have a theme, and the one for this film is how people seem incapable of trusting each other unless there’s a huge crisis at hand… and maybe not even then.

Timely, that.

The story is set in the fictional Asian land of Kumandra, which was divided into five factions half a millennia ago, a cataclysmic time when the protective dragons all disappeared. It seems the land was riven by terrible creatures called the Druun that feasted on human strife, turning everyone they touched into stone. They’re represented as faceless clouds of purple energy and darkness.

The dragons created a magical gem to banish the Druun, wielded by the water dragon, Sisu (voice of Awkwafina), who disappeared in the final battle. Since then the gem has been guarded by the Heart clan, with wise Benja (Daniel Dae Kim) as their chieftain. As the story opens his teen daughter Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) has just been inducted into the corps of guardians.

Benja thinks the rest of the clans need to come together to reclaim the peace and togetherness that have eluded them. But instead the headstrong chief of Fang clan (Sandra Oh) has her daughter, Namaari (Gemma Chan), befriend Raya and then try to steal the gem. In the melee it is broken into pieces that are spirited off.

Flash forward and Raya, now grown to womanhood, roams a land again infested by the Druun. She still tries to reunite the pieces of the gem, and in doing so awakens the spirit of Sisu. She’s represented as a rainbow-colored serpent in dragon form -- think of those giant Chinese puppets you see at street parades -- and similarly coiffed when in human disguise.

Turns out Sisu is not some all-powerful avatar, but a bit goofy and by her own admission “not the best dragon.” Her sense of wonderment is tempered by the firm belief that trust is the foundation of all positive relationships.

The pair sets out to bring the gem back together, again coming into conflict with Namaari and the Fang. There’s also a classic “putting the team together” spirit as they enlist various castoffs to their team. They include Boun (Izaac Wang), a boy who runs a ship/restaurant; Tong (Benedict Wong), a gruff but lonely one-eyed warrior; and Noi (Thalia Tran), a toddler who pulls off all sorts of crazy ninja-inspired heists with her crew of three monkey henchmen.

Tran is terrific in her role, giving Raya equal measures of pluck and grace. Awkwafina’s slightly gravely timbre and surfdude-ish inflections keep Sisu firmly in the comic relief zone rather than being seen as a spiritual guide.

Animation veteran Don Hall co-directs with relative newcomer Carlos López Estrada from a screenplay by rookie Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim (“Crazy Rich Asians”). My take is the script needed a few more rewrites and refocusing on fewer characters, though they clearly identify their emotional beats and land on them solidly.

The movie boasts lots of zippy martial arts action fighting, including Raya’s special extendable scimitar. I also liked her pet friend Tuk Tuk (Alan Tudyk), who sort of resembles a pill bug crossed with a marsupial of some sort. He’s a tiny guy in the early sequence but grows into a massive, gentle companion who also doubles as a spinning steed.

“Raya and the Last Dragon” lands in the middle-good field of Disney animation like “Wreck-It Ralph” and “Big Hero 6.” It probably won’t last long in the memory, but everyone’ll have a good time while the ride lasts.

 

 

Review: "Big Hero 6"

I miss comic books, though I don’t know if they miss me. It’s been 25 years since I bought one, and since then an entire generation of artists has grown up and created books I’ve never heard of -- including “Big Hero 6,” which has now been adapted into a Disney animated film.

Apparently, the Disney folks weren’t acquainted with this lesser-known Marvel title until about three years ago. But it supposedly, in Hollywood parlance, “spoke to them.” I’m just not sure if they understood what it was saying.

The problem with “Big Hero 6” is that it’s structured as the gentle tale of a boy and his robot, and then it veers suddenly into a superhero team genesis story with lots of boingy action and sneering bad guys. Not only to the two halves never really mesh, but the other four members of the “6” wind up as afterthoughts.

In this tech-heavy story, they’re literally add-ons.

Based on the comic by Duncan Rouleau and Steven T. Seagle, “Big Hero 6” is set in an alternate version of our world, slightly in the future. The locale is San Fransokyo, a multicultural mix of East and West sensibilities. Fourteen-year-old Hiro Hamada (voice of Ryan Potter) is a science whiz who’s already graduated from high school, but spends his days hustling in robot battle matches. His older brother, Tadashi (Daniel Henney), thinks Hiro should follow his own lead and enroll at the Institute of Technology, where they’re taking robots and gadgets to the next level.

Tadashi’s own big invention is Baymax (Scott Adsit, who must have the most calming voice I’ve ever heard), a funny-looking medical robot made of inflatable vinyl. He puffs himself up to full size when he senses a person is injured, resembling a crossbreeding of the Michelin Man and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from “Ghostbusters.”

(I pause here to point out that, though I’ve not read the comic book, I did enough research to learn the Baymax in it resembles the portly, vanilla-personality version seen here not at all. He’s a huge, mean, green warrior.)

Anyway, bad things happen and Hiro decides to transform Baymax into a blinged-out badass -- a serious challenge, considering he’s basically a white balloon who leaks air if even slightly abraded. His programming is about helping the sick and injured, not laying down the hurt. But Hiro tinkers with his exterior, transforming Baymax into a big red flying goliath, and with his innards, rendering him more assertive.

The rest of the team are assembled late in the game, and are other students at the institute. They include Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.), who wields energy blades sprouting from his hands; Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez), who concocts all sorts of strange goos from within her handbag; Go Go Tomago (Jamie Chung), who skates around on and wields gravitational discs; and Fred (T.J. Miller), a dim-bulb dude-ish type who dreams of becoming a fire-breathing dragon… and does, sort of.

It’s kind of nice to have a team of super-heroes who did not get their abilities via gamma rays or mutation, but through sheer dint of their brains and hard work. They’re basically nerds in super-suits. Interestingly, the outfit Hiro creates for himself does not grant him any powers; he basically just rides around on Baymax’s back like ballast. It’s also weird that, after an early moment spraying Hiro’s burn with ointment, Baymax never employs his medical skills again.

The villain is a mysterious bad guy in a kabuki mask who has stolen Hiro’s micro-robot technology to create a seemingly invincible army of tiny minions who can form themselves into any shape he imagines. (I was never quite clear why Hiro, who creates all the incredibly advanced power-ups for his team in a garage, isn’t able to just whip up some more microbots.)

Other notable characters include Alistair Krei (Alan Tudyk), a reckless industrialist; Professor Robert Callaghan, benevolent head of the institute (an excellent James Cromwell); and Maya Rudolph as the Hamada brothers’ loving aunt.

I really liked the early part of “Big Hero 6,” when it’s just the story of a lost and lonely kid who uses his smarts to invent a friend. Then it tries to go all “Avengers” on us.