Raya And The Last Dragon – PG-13 – 1 hr 54 min
NO SPOILERS Movie Review
Watched in theater Friday April 2, 2021
AMC Lakewood 12 – Lakewood, Washington
17th new movie seen in theater in 2021
Several kingdoms are protected by a giant gem that was forged by dragons in a pact to keep the water-fearing Druins away from turning people to stone. When the kingdoms can’t agree on who will control the gem, it breaks into five pieces.
Raya’s father casts her into the river to embark on a quest to reunite the kingdoms, piece back together the five gems and summon the final dragon to assist.
We took our grandchildren to see this in the theater, age 6 and 4 and surprisingly (to us anyway) they made it through the entire movie without bailing. This was a first. Apparently, they had seen this at their house several times, so must have been a premium buy through Disney+ for that. They liked it enough to stay with it, and it seemed a little more suited to young girls than boys, but hey, we were excited they watched it all the way through again (for them).
As for us? It was an entertaining movie. The kind that Disney knows how to crank out on an assembly line. It is lacking the music and songs that normally accompany movies like this. There’s like one moment, maybe two, where Raya starts to break into singing something, but it’s not a full song.
So, this becomes a quest movie with the goal pretty clear: try to retrieve all five gems so the dragon can help them reassemble into a single, big gem. This keeps viewers engaged, because we want to see what happens if/when they get all those gem pieces back. Along the way obstacles and conflicts are thrown in their way.
When we talked about the movie, Kara and I felt similarly toward it. Not bad, not amazing, just kind of an average Disney animated movie. Would we have paid $30 for this to see as part of Disney+ premium? Nope. Glad we saw it with our grandchildren. They had a good time.
No, we don’t recommend this, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing. It’s the kind of movie when it finally appears on Disney+ without the $30 fee that you might want to check out. Again, I think younger girls would be more interested in this movie than boys. Adults will not be bored by it, so that’s a win.
Rating (out of 5 stars): ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Todd) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Kara)
Movies, Movies, Movies 