So when I walked into Raya and The Last Dragon, I was not pleasantly surprised that it was good, in fact, I had a similar reaction that I had when I watched other animated films: It’s good, I liked it, but it’s not perfect. Now I make fun of Disney for several things, crappy live-action remakes, ruining Star Wars, etc, but with animated films from them and Pixar, you honestly can’t go wrong. And animated Disney films, for the most part, require no looking into, and thankfully I was relieved to learn that Disney still knew how to make good ones. I usually don’t read into movies before seeing them, but sometimes I’ll read reviews before seeing movies if I’m not sure about them. But was the film worthy of my first visit to a theater since Covid hit? Yes, and this comes from a guy who did almost no research on the film or the adorable dancing short that accompanied it. And I can safely say that it was all that I remembered, except the popcorn came in a plastic bag for some reason. I love movies, I love watching movies in movie theaters, I like the surround sound, the giant screen, the sometimes overpriced popcorn, soda, and candy and sometimes I like other people being there with me to share my reaction to the film.

This was my first visit to a movie theater in a YEAR. This was the first Disney-Pixar movie released in 2021. This film was an important moment for two reasons. “Disney did good this time.” These were the words out of the mouth of a friend of mine who accompanied me to our local theater a couple weeks ago where we saw Raya and The Last Dragon, a Disney-Pixar film directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada and stars Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina.

Raya and the last dragon movie theater