MOVIE REVIEWS

Restore the World

BY BONNIE L. HARRIS

DISNEY RACKS UP brigade of secondary characters and the sacred Dragon gem was tribes, Sisu regains her sibling’s ANOTHER winner who help her internalize shattered. This spiritual object magical powers. When they with Raya and the Last important life lessons. The brought the dragons together finally reach Fang, Raya must

Dragon, a colorful animated jaw-dropping animation and against an evil force called face a friend who betrayed her extravaganza filled with zany the super action-packed plot the Druun. The Druun now tribe and caused the mayhem. characters, a quest to save the quickly shift attention away decimates the country turning For a family film, there’s an world, and a young girl’s mission from the film’s Achilles heel, an humans into stone and only a extraordinary amount of to reunite with her father. Add extremely complex backstory restored Dragon gem can defeat swordplay and physical fighting, one more Disney “non-princess” that takes almost the entire it. Stay with me here. At Raya’s which makes for an exciting heroine who battles seemingly movie to retell. We enter side is Sisu, the very last dragon, story, but sometimes pushes the overwhelming forces and a mid-crisis when the country whose character combines envelope. The predictable happy of Kumandra has endured six clumsy, graceful, helpless, ending returns everyone to years of civil war without the powerful, naïve, and intuitive their families, but the false sense benevolent presence of dragons. into a strangely appealing of peace rings slightly hollow Raya, a lone warrior, shares her force that can shape-shift from given so much human hostility. history in voice-over and we dragon to human. As Raya Making room for the sequel, I learn that her tribe, Heart, was gathers the Dragon gem pieces suppose. Pop some popcorn and betrayed by rival tribe, Talon, from each of the other four enjoy! ✦

RAYA

Walt Disney Pictures, Rated PG Streaming on Disney Plus, Amazon & in select theatres Sisu and Raya become friends.

FOR the PARENTS

Beneath Our Feet

THE DIG Magnolia Mae Films, Rated: PG-13 Streaming on Netflix

MOVIES ABOUT ARCHEOLOGY usually involve dinosaurs, treasure hunters, or a mummy’s curse. But The Dig, directed by British newcomer Simon Stone, veers away from Hollywood fantasy and calmly takes its audience into a wonderful true story about the remarkable excavation of Sutton Hoo in 1939. We learn that Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England, contains unusual burial mounds, and as WWII looms, Edith Pretty hires excavator, Basil Brown, to unearth the mounds on her estate. What they find astounds the scientific community and dates to the 6th century Anglo Saxon period, which upends conventional archeological theory. Of course once discovered, everyone wants credit and Edith must weigh her options while Basil struggles with snobby academics who dismiss him. Add a clandestine love story in the digging, along with the preparations for the coming world war, and you have a deeply poignant metaphor for human connection to the past. Director Stone uses Edith’s son, Robert, to lighten the drama and insert youthful optimism as the situation in the dig, as well as in Britain, becomes increasingly dire. Finally, war comes and the digging stops, but not before each character resolves their worst fears and realizes that life will inexorably continue for the next generation.

The first discovery.