So uhhh… there’s gonna be some minor spoilers. I hope that was obvious.
My family is very into Disney, so it’s no surprise that we had arranged a family movie night to watch Raya and the Last Dragon almost as soon as it was released. The experience was rather lackluster. The movie wasn’t terrible per se, it was enjoyable overall, but the film didn’t feel impactful in any sense. When it was over that was just it, it was over, there were no lingering feelings about it. I am no movie critic, but I’d like to discuss where I think the movie fell flat.
The biggest thing this movie missed, in my opinion, was to show, not tell. Far too much about the world and characters is directly told to the audience through dialogue or narration, and the characters aren’t given enough space to develop through their actions. As an example, Raya’s greatest flaw in the movie is supposed to be her unwillingness to trust others, this flaw is constantly broadcasted to us by her stating her distrust in conversation, over, and over. In general, the cast of characters could have used more time to develop naturally. Even though they were somewhat underdeveloped, most of the characters were enjoyable to watch throughout the film
Now, I said most of the characters were enjoyable. Most because I found Sisu, the last dragon which the movie is named after, to be very annoying. This is obviously much more opinionated compared to my other criticisms of the movie (though ultimately that’s all any of this is: my opinion), but every time Sisu spoke I was just like:
Aside from her irritating dialogue, another gripe I have with Sisu is her physical design. Somehow managing to give a dragon a generic Disney princess like face, the design is very disappointing, especially compared to the original concept art.
Seriously, the design they went with looks like Elsa’s fursona. One final thing that annoys me about Sisu is how she continues the awful trend of hiring celebrities to play animated characters instead of actual voice actors who could probably do a much better job.
I have not seen this movie but now I am interested to check it out. Honestly I agree that in movies it is better for characters to demonstrate their character development through the plot and story line and allow the audience to interpret their actions rather than spoon feeding the audience what the character is thinking and the intentions behind their actions.
ReplyDeleteBased on that second paragraph of analysis, maybe you should consider being a movie critic because that was very insightful and professional. I haven't seen this movie but there's always that one Disney movie that seems so mediocre that the only takeaway from the movie is its sheer mediocrity. This definitely sounds like one of those movies. For all the advertising they did for this movie, maybe they should have spent more money on development instead.
ReplyDeleteYikes! I was actually super interested in this film but I've lost a bit of excitement about it just now. I think sometimes movies aimed at younger audiences like children tend to do that "tell, not show" thing a lot unfortunately, making our (older audience's) experience not as authentic or enjoyable. I'd still like to check this film out! Btw, just by looking at the title of this post I already knew you'd day something about Sisu's character design haha! I wonder why they didn't just go with the already way more interesting initial concept art...
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with celebrities being given too many voice acting jobs. Only one I can justify is Robin Williams and the genie, oh and Mark Hamill as the Joker. Other than that I think professional voice actors should be given the job as they're the pros. I've actually never heard of Raya and the Last Dragon, but I probably won't check it out after your review haha.
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