LILO & STITCH Review: New Ways to Be Cute

Moderately entertaining live action version falls short of the animated original but finds new ways to be cute.

Lilo and Stitch
The film opens Friday, May 23, only in movie theaters, via Disney. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.

The second of three films made by Disney at its Florida animation studio, Lilo and Stitch (2002) became an unexpected runaway hit and launched the careers of co-directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois into the stratosphere, leading to multiple followup movies and series, as well as the duo's How to Train Your Dragon and Sanders' The Wild Robot.

The heart of the original animated film was tied to its tale of two sisters who were still grieving the death of their parents and struggling to form their own family, complicated by the arrival of a destructive creature from outer space near their home on the island of Kauai, Hawaii.

Disney has a chequered history with remaking beloved animated films as live-action monstrosities, which continues with Lilo and Stitch. Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, who made the remarkably affecting Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (20201), the live-action remake stars Sydney Elizebeth Agudong as Nani, the older sister of young Lilo (Maia Kealoha).

Nani struggles to earn enough money to support them both, while Lilo spends most of her day dashing around and/or acting out her grief and anger over the loss of their parents. Tia Carrere, who voiced Nani in the original, co-stars as Ms. Kekoa, a sympathetic child protective services worker, who admonishes Nani that she must clean up her act (and the house) or else she will be forced to find Lilo a foster family.

Meanwhile, the titular Stitch has been exiled from the planet where he was created by mad scientist Jumba (Zach Galifianakis, uncharacteristically sedate). Jumba, in turn, has been commanded to retrieve his errant creation from Planet Earth, accompanied by the unhelpful Pleakley (Billy Magnussen), who, in an evident nod to political correctness, no longer dresses as a woman to disguise himself on Earth.

Disney's decision to begin making live-action versions of their animated films makes sense from a business perspective, but it's difficult to find much originality, joy or charm in the new versions. Hired after the release of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Dean Fleischer Camp sounded like a good choice to make a new version of Lilo and Stitch, but there's little here to recommend it for originality.

Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes are credited for the screenplay, with the former reportedly rewriting the latter's script, and it sticks quite closely to the original film's narrative, faithfully adhering to its structure throughout. Certain details have been changed, and the third act has ballooned in size to accommodate an extended action sequence, but the intentions and conclusions will not surprise anyone who has seen the original animated film.

Respectfully, the new version includes numerous nods to the original, in spirit if not in exact duplication or replication. Frankly, though, I was hoping for more than a dash of originality from Dean Fleischer Camp, which reflects the challenge for newer filmmakers to inject their own personality into major studio productions. The original benefited from Chris Sanders' devotion to the character he created in 1985, as well as the studio's lessened expectations from its relatively lower budget.

In contrast, the new version lives in the tidal-wave shadow of what came before, not only the original's success, but also the sequels and the spin-offs and the merchandise. Bound to be best appreciated by those who have not seen the original, which is still streaming on Disney Plus, the live-action version remains stuck on being "cute." The characters are "cute," the new actors are "cute," and the action is "cute."

To be fair, I did smile once or twice.

The film opens Friday, May 23, only in movie theaters, via Disney.