Raya and the Last Dragon

At its best, this movie is charming, fascinating and even moving. At its worst, it is superficial, silly and sometimes downright stupid. So I guess you could call it a mixed bag. The strengths: beautiful to look at, emotionally true, and effective in its use of its Southeast Asian cultural milieu (at least as far as a total outsider can tell). The weaknesses: the story, though overall fine, has some real holes in it, not the least of which being, why isn’t everyone immediately on the same page once the dragon shows up, given she is otherwise treated like a god? A lot of the conflict should just melt away once everyone knows who they’re dealing with. Also, the secondary characters, though eventually integral to the climax and resolution, are at first really annoying (and kind of stay that way, to be honest). Given the foregoing, one might expect this to be a mid-range movie—but that would be grading on too steep a curve. After all, I did enjoy much of the film, and what I didn’t appreciate—besides the plainly-selling-to-toddlers silliness—may have been just me missing something culturally. So let’s let this one squeak in just at the barest lower echelon of the PURR range, and declare it a qualified success.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

On its own terms, this is a pretty good action flick. It features all the requisite elements of such a piece of work: appealing leads (even Awkwafina, who till now has seemed mostly annoying), some truly audacious action and/or fight sequences (a staple of actual Chinese cinema for a long time), and a visual style that ranges from eye-catching in parts to down right gorgeous, even ethereal at times. I'm not nearly qualified to comment on its ethnic bona fides, but I doubt that's really the point of this movie anyway. (The point is to expand the MCU in new, money-making directions. Duh.) Simu Liu is good in the title role, everyone around him provides fine support (except perhaps Ben Kingsley, who takes his reprised role and runs with it...mostly into walls), and the effects provide some equally impressive creature partners. The ultimate judgement here lies in one simple aspect: does it work as an entertaining film? Sure does. At this point, this might be the best of the recent vintage Marvel movies--a low bar to leap, admittedly; it remains to be seen if there's enough life and freshness here to keep the ball rolling beyond today.