Raya and the Last Dragon - Disney
The studio’s princesses have been getting pluckier since Ariel literally lost her voice pining for a man in The Little Mermaid. That trend reaches its butt-kicking conclusion with Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), a sword-wielding martial arts expert from fantasy kingdom Kumandra. After evil gas-like monsters called the Druun began turning humans into statues, the survivors retreated to their five tribal strongholds, each protecting themselves with a fragment of a magical Druun-banishing jewel.
But if Raya can put the jewel back together, she can banish the monsters from the entire kingdom and reunite the five warring clans of her once-happy nation. So she needs to perform a string of heists with the help of her giant armadillo sidekick Tuk Tuk (Alan Tudyk) and goofy shape-shifting water dragon Sisu (Awkwafina).
Along the way, more comrades join her cause. There’s a 10-year-old chef (Izaac Wang), a sad strongman (Benedict Wong)and, most delightfully, a baby who is both orphaned and a con-artist (Thalia Tran).
Once again, there’s no handsome prince to sweep our heroine off her feet, but we do have a villain. Namaari (Gemma Chan) is from the isolationist Fang tribe and wants the jewel fragments to empower her own people.
