Lilo & Stitch
Disney’s remake of its 2002 cartoon is by turn hackneyed, crude, chaotic, embarrassing and mawkish – take your pick.
Blue Hawaii: Stitch and Lilo
Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.
Alien lands on earth. Alien is adopted by human child. Other aliens turn up in pursuit. It’s an age-old conceit and it doesn’t get any better. The original Lilo & Stitch was released twenty-three years ago as an animated feature and back then it had a smidgen of freshness and really connected with the funny bone of younger viewers. Inventive and energetic, it served up some colourful characters, in particular the sarcastic, colossal social worker voiced by Ving Rhames (M:I - The Final Reckoning). Since then it’s spawned three small-screen sequels, a trio of animated series for TV, innumerable video games, a series of children’s books and theme park attractions. Time then for Disney to resurrect the original as a live-action feature and to squeeze out all the charm and any freshness left in the franchise.
Stitch, also known as 6-2-6, is the product of an illegal genetic experiment, the flawed consequence of a deranged mind. Designed to wreak as much havoc and destruction as possible, 6-2-6 has been built in with advanced learning capabilities and is virtually indestructible, while its insatiable appetite for sweet food will no doubt chime with many of the intended demographic. Escaping from the planet Turo by appropriating a police cruiser, Stitch/6-2-6 crashes on the island of Kauaʻi, Hawaii, where it/he is run over by a tourist bus. Mistaken for a dog, he is taken to an animal shelter where a six-year-old girl, Lilo (Maia Kealoha), adopts him.
Recently expelled from her hula classes for inexcusable behaviour, Lilo is in desperate need of a friend, particularly as both her parents are dead and her older sister Nani (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong) is away much of the time trying to make ends meet. For Lilo, Stitch would seem to be a gift from Heaven, until his disposition for creating chaos – breaking everything in his path and setting fire to stuff – makes him a liability…
Quite what message the film is imparting to young minds beggars belief. No doubt Stitch’s gluttony, flatulence and mischievous behaviour will have some appeal, but the film’s non-stop pandemonium and crudity – not to mention its unmitigated schmaltz and torrent of tired tropes – should prove close to unbearable to many adult viewers. Nonetheless, its huge commercial success will guarantee much more of the same to come. Catch Flow while you can.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Billy Magnussen, Courtney B. Vance, Zach Galifianakis, Maia Kealoha, Kaipo Dudoit, Tia Carrere, Amy Hill, Mertle Edmonds, Jason Scott Lee, and the voices of Chris Sanders, Hannah Waddingham.
Dir Dean Fleischer Camp, Pro Jonathan Eirich and Dan Lin, Screenplay Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes, Ph Nigel Bluck, Pro Des Todd Cherniawsky, Ed Adam Gerstel and Phillip J. Bartell, Music Dan Romer, Costumes Wendy Chuck, Sound Randy Thom and Tom Myers.
Walt Disney Pictures/Rideback-Walt Disney Studios.
107 mins. USA. 2025. UK Rel: 21 May 2025. US Rel: 23 May 2025. Cert. U.
