In case the screenshots and any trailers/ads that were inflicted on you didn't make that obvious.
The movie a high budget garbage. The animation and art is good enough but the script makes Captain Planet seem like deep literature.
The setting is fantasy southeast asia, mostly presenting as Indonesia with the separate, distinctly color-coded, city-states plucked straight out of Avatar.
It is initially presented with some interminable exposition but once you get through that the first 15 or so minutes of actual movie are somewhat watchable. After the initial setup though everything goes downhill.
The main character is a generic wokist mary sue who is pretty much Rey from the star wars sequels and just as tedious to watch. She never fails, is never in any real danger, and everything she does works out great. The "villain" (not really though) is a tumblr self-insert fantasy with the dyke undercut. She is ALSO is the BEST fighter, is in charge because of nepotism, bullies men for laughs, and, since unnaturally buff animated women are apparently the new thing, has freakishly broad shoulders.
The dragon from the title somehow manages to be both cringe and nightmare fuel. Imagine the genie from alladin murdered a my-little-pony and was doing a puppet show with its corpse.
The side characters are all tedious and bland and of course hyper-competent at everything. The exception is the last side character acquired, a brute barbarian who works at acting tough but is actually really nice. Since he is both male and a slightly interesting character he never gets the spotlight.
The story is basically a poorly written video game where the characters need to beat each level to get the mcguffin, acquiring new and "quirky" party members at each stop, along with powerups to the dragon, most of which aren't seen later in the movie because the writers couldn't be bothered to go back and read what they wrote earlier. There is no "story" so much as a series of very loosly connected scenes that the viewer has to suffer through for the runtime.
But the dialogue makes you envy the deaf. It is full of modern social media vernacular that is so bland that I'm fairly sure it was specifically designed to inflict pain on the listener.
This post is way more effort than the movie is worth, just stay the fuck away from it.
Oh god, I watched this 3 days ago and it ranks really low on Disney movies, not as bad a Wreck it Ralph 2 because they didn't emasculate their hero but it's just bad all over. Let me go over my notes.
Okay so the dialog is atrocious. First exchange between these twos references "Dragon Nerd." If you're trying to set us in your universe, you can't use modern vernacular. If you swear or reference a god, you need to do that in character, any decent role player knows that, as Nerd is a term from the 1980s. The two writers of this script are women, in case you're curious. Adele of Crazy Rich Asians who adapted the screenplay and Qui Nguyen who's done alot of trash YA novels. Metacritc for the film.
The film was made for brownie points first, actual story second. As is typical disney these days. Also why shaved heads, I caught a bit of clone wars and both female sisters who are stronk also have shaved heads that look like mental patients. This doesn't look "strong", it's looks silly.
Okay basic plot. Land is dragon shaped, need magic gem to beat back shadow monsters that consume beings and turn them into stone for some reason. It's a nebulous force of evil and it's as generic as it's get. Raya's father AKA Johnny Gat hopes for peace? That's unlike him. But he invites the other factions, Fang betrays them and the gem breaks, Gat follows Aisha and stays out of the film 20 minutes in.
Raya travels, other princess tries to get her blah blah. A few things stick out while they travel. The child characters of Boon and Con-Baby, yes a baby that steals from people cause parents stone and is written as well as you think. They're horrible and it falls into the Ghostbusters 2016 school of comedy in where the people never stop fucking talking, Shinsha is mostly to blame for this but she is never funny. I know she's called Shershu or something but I need something to cling to in this sea of despair and Shinsha is my life preserver because she's from something better.
Let's talk about voice acting for a minute. Kelly Marie Tran voices Raya, she's actually passable. She's a horrible actor but as a voice actor she has that generic female quality that passes for most heroines these days. She's also in Croods 2 so maybe she's moving that way role wise? (Croods 2 is okay as well, even if it has a stronk female presence as well, it beats out Lego Movie 2 and Incredibles 2 at least). Shinsha is voiced by Nora Lum aka Awkwafina. She's horrible because she's asian but her voice sounds black, for lack of a better term. It's just also unpleasant to listen to.
Back to plot. Shinsha saves Raya a few times but at the water town is the stupidest thing in the movie. Shinsha says that she knows where more crystals are and is tricked to be taken outside the town by the chief who has the stone piece, she threatens with leaving Shinsha out there if she doesn't tell here where the other stone pieces are. Now as you're aware, if she's turned to stone, how the hell is she going to tell the chief where the stone pieces are? If it were any other curse, it'd be fine but because stone, the writer didn't think this plot hole through.
Skipping ahead, Raya just needs Fang's piece now. So Shinsha says to trust her but shaved princess brings a crossbow and shoots Shinsha. No shit this was the funniest moment of the movie, because you could see it coming and it happened anyway. Shaved blames Raya for Shinsha's death and Fang's city gets attacked. They all fall down a crevice while saving people and Raya realizes that the MLP Dragons giving their magic to Shinsha wasn't actual magic but Trust. It was Trust that made the world whole and Harmonious. So she gives her stone piece to shaved princess and gets turned to stone and eventually everyone else as well, stone works, evil destroy, dragons come back and country united blah blah it's so pedestrian you can install a crosswalk on it.
This thing is almost 2 hours long and it's so fugging boring. Hey, is there a better disney movie with a better heroine, a better setting, actual stakes in story and characters and a better explanation for the blue rock that ties closer to their culture instead of "It's just Trust bro?" It saddens me that Atlantis is 20 years old and is still a better looking and animated film than this.
Let's not pretend, this movie was for the Chinese. They may say it's for South East Asian people (Even though they can't watch the film due to Disney+ not being available in that region), but let's not kid ourselves. Thing is, they already made a better Chinese movie that has a Disney look. White Snake might not be the best story wise and is obviously a product of China, but it does a better job at actually telling a story than this pandering BS does.
In short, this film is one thing.
Actually from the 50's. Invented by Dr. Seuss in the now banned book, If I Ran the Zoo.
Its hilarious.. an asian that speaks ghetto.
I've recently watched The last Unicorn from 1982 and my daughter ended up watching it 3 times in 2 days. Atlantis is new compared to that.
Bro is that a butt plug horn in far right mlp dragon?
Honestly wouldn't surprise me.
They tied obviously modern, out of place lingo to the fantastical elements like the Ancestors and Mushu (Who was explicitly designed to be an alien element to ancient China, hence the fire breathing and the Eddie Murphy.) The serious scenes they played straight, without needing to lean on slang or dated references.
It's the same principle as Genie in Aladdin. Keep your setting generally grounded, then you can get away with using the fantastic to capture the current year.