There’s no question that Disney is going a little too hard on live-action remakes. The fatigue is to the point that Snow White bombed incredibly hard. But Lilo & Stitch was already in the can, ready for Memorial Day audiences.
I’ll say first, the original animated film is one of my favorites. It’s the last film of the Disney renaissance that started with The Little Mermaid. I also have been wearing out on the live action remakes. I thought Jungle Book was great, Aladdin was better than it had any right to be, but all the others have been incredibly unnecessary at best and outright bad at worst.
As far as Stitch himself, he’s one of my favorite characters. I’m a Disney adult, and Stitch is second for me only to one of the greats, Donald Duck. When I commissioned a piece of art from my friend Adam Reck depicting my family on Splash Mountain for my 15th wedding anniversary, Stitch was one of the characters I asked to be included riding with us.
So I went into this movie with a healthy dose of skepticism.
I’m glad to say I was pleasantly surprised. An actress as young as Maia Kealoha can be hit or miss, and while not all of her line deliveries were perfect, she did a great job, giving a great amount of depth to this grieving child. Even better was Sydney Agudong as Nani, Lilo’s long-suffering older sister.
Nani’s struggle was played for laughs in the original, and here there’s genuine depth and pathos to her journey. This is a 19-year-old kid thrust into adulthood by an unimaginable loss, and seeing her journey from kid out of her depth to accepting what’s best for her family was actually moving. Agudong took that task and ran with it, playing it incredibly believably, and essentially making Nani a co-lead with the title characters.
As for the rest of the cast, there was a lot of good and one sour note. Original Nani actor Tia Carrere returned to the franchise as the girls’ social worker, and was genuine and sympathetic in a role that could have been played as a broad antagonist. Amy Hill and Kaipo Dudoit were fantastic as the girls’ neighbors Tutu and David. A major highlight was Billy Magnusson as the one-eyed alien bureaucrat Pleakley, whose voice work matched the character perfectly, and who played an alien in a human hologram disguise hilariously.
As for Stitch, the CGI worked really well. He was pretty believable in the real world. And thankfully Chris Sanders returned to voice the character once again, delivering the pitch-perfect performance he’s given since the character’s debut.
On the broader side, the cinematography was good, and really used the island setting, showing Hawaii as it is, both good and bad. It was nice to see that the island isn’t all shiny resorts. The music and sound design were great throughout as well.
Where did the movie fall short, though?
The opening scene in deep space was paced much too quickly. What was about 10 minutes in the original film was halved here, and there was no time to see some of the best scenes from the original played out on a bigger scale. Hannah Waddingham’s voice performance as the Grand Councilwoman was very good though, and her live-action design was great (who knew that collar was supposed to be coral?).
Courtney B. Vance did a solid job as secret agent Cobra Bubbles. Making him an undercover agent from the beginning was the right move. The writing did Vance no favors though as the character was overly broad and silly up to the final action scene, when he gave a very good performance through the end of the film. It’s a little disappointing that the writers didn’t give him the original’s best joke, though.
And the lowlight of the film was Zach Galifianakis. When his Jumba was in alien form, the lack of the character’s distinctive accent was jarring, but his performance was otherwise OK. When the character ended up in his human disguise though, the comedian was flat and seemed almost bored. It was disappointing to see such solid casting go to waste, and I can’t help but think maybe someone else could have played the part better (I can think of about five other comedians who could have done it instantly).
So did Lilo & Stitch rise to the gold standard of these live-action remakes? No, not quite. But it did add enough to the original that I was glad I saw it, and I’m thrilled that my kids enjoyed it. It added an emotional depth to the family’s journey that justified the entire film’s existence, and that’s enough for me.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble. Follow him @brawl2099.bsky.social.
