Carlos López Estrada

A Disney animated film (Disney, 2021)

A girl tries to save a fantasy world by repairing a magic crystal.

C+ (Okay).

The beginning is hard to watch; it feels like a recap of an entire other movie. And the final act gets pretty tedious as it focuses on a ham-fisted lesson. There's a stretch in between, though, where it's a buddy adventure with Awkwafina, which is good.

(Mar. 2023)

There is always some disconnect for me when a story set in some "ancient" "foreign" location uses current American tropes and idioms. However, the premise was good, the development arc satisfactory, and the production entertaining.
(Reading date is a place-holder for the correct year.)

Long ago, in the fantasy world of Kumandra, humans and dragons lived together in harmony. But when an evil force threatened the land, the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity. Now, 500 years later, that same evil has returned and it’s up to a lone warrior, Raya, to track down the legendary last dragon to restore the fractured land and its divided people.
(source: TMDB)