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The Hindu
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
‘Lilo & Stitch' movie review: A rumbustious, out-of-this-world adventure
Chris Sanders' and Dean DeBlois' Lilo & Stitch (2002) telling the story of a wildly destructive blue alien who lands in Hawaii to discover the meaning of family was hailed for its charm and humour, and Disney's live action reboot retains the wit and warmth of the original. Lilo & Stitch (English) Director: Dean Fleischer Camp Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Billy Magnussen, Hannah Waddingham, Chris Sanders, Courtney B. Vance, Zach Galifianakis, Maia Kealoha Run time: 108 minutes Storyline: A destructive alien lands on earth, is adopted by a six-year-old Hawaiian girl and hunted by its evil creator The story is mostly the same, with evil Kweltikwan genius, Dr. Jumba Jookiba (Zach Galifianakis), in a great deal of trouble with the United Galactic Federation for his nasty experiments, including creating an indestructible agent of chaos, Experiment 626 (Chris Sanders). Though initially the Grand Councilwoman (Hannah Waddingham) imprisons Jumba and shuts down his lab, when 626 escapes to earth, he is sent to capture it. Agent Wendell Pleakley (Billy Magnussen), who has done intensive study on earth fashions, (when we first see him, he has on a cowboy hat) is sent along to ensure Jumba does not harm humans. In Hawaii, Lilo (Maia Kealoha), a six-year-old orphan with a singular imagination, and a propensity for trouble, is the cause of a great deal of worry for her sister, Nani (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong). Nani is Lilo's legal guardian and has given up a chance to study marine biology on a full scholarship to take care of her little sister. Her efforts might not be enough as the social worker, Mrs. Kekoa (Tia Carrere), warns her. Mrs. Kekoa gives Nani a week to get everything in order, including cleaning the kitchen, stocking the refrigerator, and getting medical insurance to keep Lilo out of foster care. Lilo wishes for a friend upon a falling star, which is actually 626's stolen police cruiser. She adopts 626 from the animal shelter where the naughty alien, who has assumed the shape of a dog, is kept after causing mayhem at a wedding. Lilo names 626, Stitch, and their mischief causes Nani to lose her job. CIA agent, Cobra Bubbles (Courtney B. Vance) is also on the hunt for Stitch. Cobra Bubbles incidentally was the social worker in the original. Nani's friend, David (Kaipo Dudoit), is a surfer and his grandmother, Tūtū (Amy Hill), helps Nani care for Lilo. ALSO READ:The politics of the Cannes red carpet The visuals are bright pops of colour, with the gloriously rendered CGI aliens seamlessly interacting with the humans. Stitch, with his grinning mouth and gleaming eyes, is a delight. The action is inventive and Kealoha making her acting debut as Lilo is cute beyond belief. Magnussen, as Pleakley, gets most of the funny lines. Sanders, who conceptualised and voiced Stitch in the original, is on top of his game. It is nice to see Carrere, who was Nani's voice in the original. Lilo & Stitch is one of Disney's better live-action adaptations delivering a perfect mix of nostalgia and novelty. Lilo & Stitch is currently running in theatres
USA Today
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
A parent's guide to 'Lilo & Stitch': Is Disney's movie suitable for little kids?
A parent's guide to 'Lilo & Stitch': Is Disney's movie suitable for little kids? Show Caption Hide Caption Young new star, Maia Kealoha joins Stitch from 'Lilo & Stitch' Hollywood's newest young star, Maia Kealoha, joins Stitch in studio to talk new remake 'Lilo & Stitch' If your children don't already have an undying love for Stitch ... buckle up. The furry blue alien critter from Disney's 2002 animated classic "Lilo & Stitch" is back in theaters in a new way in the live-action remake. That means a revisit for old fans who grew up with Stitch's shenanigans alongside his young Hawaiian bestie Lilo and a fresh bunch of little movie lovers discovering the adorable pals for the first time. And if your youngsters are really into space dogfights, surfing and hula dancing, and a heartfelt tale of two orphaned sisters, well, all the better. But is the new "Lilo & Stitch" as kid-friendly as the first film? Here's what parents need to know about the high-profile redo: Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox What is 'Lilo & Stitch' about? Stitch, aka Experiment 626, escapes the clutches of the United Galactic Federation and winds up crash landing in Hawaii. A 6-year-old girl named Lilo (Maia Kealoha) meets the little guy at the pound and, since everybody thinks Stitch is a dog, adopts and brings him home. But his chaotic nature causes problems for Lilo and her big sister Nani (Sydney Agudong), Lilo's legal guardian since their parents died. Struggling to keep a job and pay the bills, Nani is at risk of losing custody of Lilo, but with the help of others, they work to keep their new family together and Stitch safe from those who want to recapture him. What is the live-action 'Lilo & Stitch' rated? The remake is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association "for action, peril and thematic elements." Stitch causes a cosmic chase with a bunch of space cops at the beginning of the movie that's pretty action-packed. There are a couple of perilous situations where Nani and her neighbor/friend David (Kaipo Dudoit) have to save Lilo and the alien from drowning. And there are some emotional scenes where your little ones might worry that Lilo will be taken from Nani by social services. How long is 'Lilo & Stitch'? The runtime of the remake is 108 minutes – and it does have a mid-credits scene, in case you're wondering – while the original is 88 minutes. (This is also a good time to mention that you can stream the older cartoon version on Disney+ and it's still an awesome watch.) What happened to Lilo and Nani's parents? In the original film, Lilo reveals to Stitch that her parents died in a car accident during a storm. (She gives a fish named Pudge a sandwich because she believes he controls the weather and wants to keep him happy.) In the remake, the hows and whys of the tragedy aren't as important as Lilo and Nani trying to figure out a happy home life. They butt heads at first, with Lilo telling Nani that she likes her better as a sister than a mom, but ultimately, they grow closer and reminisce about their parents. Lilo even confesses that she "changed her mind" and says, "I like you as a mom, too" in one of the movie's sweetest moments. What is the message in 'Lilo & Stitch'? The major mantra of the first film returns for the remake: "Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind." The characters remind each other of this often, that loved ones aren't just relatives but also your community and those who come into your orbit, and you need to look out for each other. The redo doesn't carry over everything from the original cartoon, but makes sure it gets that right. And Stitch gets his important line as well when he talks about his new family: "It's small and broken, but still good." Is the 'Lilo & Stitch' remake appropriate for little kids? There are some thrilling moments that might raise a few heart rates. Lilo pushes another little girl off a stage, so be sure to point out that's not a great thing to do. And some sequences of deep emotion and discussion of lost parents might need some post-movie discussion. For the most part, however, the family comedy leans extremely kid-friendly. Stitch says some untoward things to some aliens, who get very offended, but it's all cute gibberish. Really, everything Stitch does children will love – it was true in 2002, and it's true again in 2025. Where can I watch the new 'Lilo & Stitch'? The movie is in theaters now, and probably will there for a while. So you'll have to wait a bit if you're hoping to stream it at home. If it follows a similar path like recent Disney releases "Mufasa: The Lion King" and "Captain America: Brave New World," "Lilo & Stitch" will likely be available on demand in late July or early August and on Disney+ sometime in early September.
Chicago Tribune
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
‘Lilo & Stitch' review: Disney puts another one through the de-animation machine
The roughhouse charmer 'Lilo & Stitch' from 2002, one of Disney's more freewheeling animated 21st century mashups of slapstick and heartstring-plucking, has already spun off TV and sequel iterations and a lot of merchandise. The film presented a rollicking friendship between a six-legged (six-armed? never could tell) koala-like alien being, new to our planet, and an exuberant Hawaiian Island preteen who has wished, ardently, for a true friend and a fellow chaos agent. Stitch and Lilo are now in a live-action movie. The new 'Lilo & Stitch' constitutes adequate if wearying fan service at best, and at worst, a new reason to check in with your dentist about a mouth guard for apparent teeth-grinding. The movie makes me wonder: If you don't grow up with the animated versions of whatever Disney has sent through the de-animator this time, is it a matter of coming to it with the wrong expectations, or just expecting too much? There's charm here, and a periodic human pulse, even as the remake fights with its own frenetic shrillness to the bitter end, in an adaptation by screenwriters Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes sticking closely to the animated version, while adding 23 more minutes. For newbies: Orphaned after the death of their parents, 6-year-old Lilo (Maia Kealoha), ostracized at school, is being raised by her devoted but harried teenage sister Nani (Sydney Agudong), nearing the age of adult guardianship. Nani has shelved her college dreams (already she has been accepted by the University of California-San Diego, a long way from Lilo and Hawaii) to become a marine biologist. It's a somewhat wrenching family scenario, as was the animated feature a generation ago, with conflict introduced by the sisters' wary interactions with a skeptical social worker (Tia Carrere, who voiced Nani in the earlier version). The larger conflict is interstellar. Later nicknamed Stitch by Lilo, once he crash-lands his getaway spaceship near the sisters' house, the small blue maniac from somewhere Out There is an 'illegal genetic experiment' gone haywire, lab-created by scientist Jumba on a distant planet. The scientist, more hapless than mad, must retrieve Stitch in the name of the United Galactic Federation (Hannah Waddingham voices the imperious leader). The live-action redo imagines Jumba and his cohort, the dippy Earth expert Pleakley, as aliens far more frequently depicted in human form, as played by Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen. The former appears somewhat flummoxed by his material, guessing as to what kind of comic energy or tone would work. Meanwhile, Magnussen mugs hard enough to turn the audience into mugging victims, though as staged and edited, the ramshackle physical comedy dominating 'Lilo & Stitch' is more obstacle than answer. Even with director Dean Fleischer Camp coming off the terrific and hilarious and moving 'Marcel the Shell With Shoes On' feature, based on the lovely Marcel short films, his handling of this material feels thwarted. It's a prefabricated commodity, and those are not easy to activate. The main problem? Violent physical comedy can succeed or fail a million different ways in the realms of animation, least well, probably, in photorealistic animation. Tellingly, the 2002 Disney movie was not photorealistic; its animated watercolor palette and more traditional, storybook visual approach let Lilo and Stitch be themselves, in a frenzy or in heartfelt reflection, and that approach worked. But in live-action? Well, it's different, even if the story is the same. Watching people getting clobbered with mops, or Stitch making messes and starting fires at the open-air beach resort where Nani works — the funny's diminished in live-action. It's more bombastic, and more realistic. And those two qualities don't improve anything. Every action beat, and even the simplest dialogue exchanges, feel aggressively rushed and pushy here. The saving graces are Agudong and Kealoha. Their characters' sibling relationship, fractious but loving, keeps at least five toes in the real world and in real feelings, thanks to the actors. 'Lilo & Stitch' always was a nutty collision of any number of films and stories, from 'Frankenstein' to 'E.T.' to any prior Disney project featuring two characters who might plausibly sing 'You've Got a Friend in Me' to each other. That song, of course, belongs to 'Toy Story,' but you get the idea. While Disney has no financial imperative to modify a business plan centered on what they've already made — and for the record, the recent 'Snow White' was far from the worst of its recent remakes — they do have a creative imperative. They have an obligation to their own future, and to the film medium's. It can't be lost on the creative artists involved with each new Disney drag-and-drop, including 'Lilo & Stitch': Live-action recycling makes characters you know and love more 'real.' And too often, that realism comes with only trace elements of real charm, or magic. 'Lilo & Stitch' — 2 stars (out of 4) MPA rating: PG (for action, peril, and thematic elements) Running time: 1:48 How to watch: Premieres in theaters May 22
The Star
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
'Lilo & Stitch' review: A near perfect live-action remake, Disney's best one yet
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp Cast: Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders, Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Hannah Waddingham, Billy Magnussen, Zach Galifianakis, Courtney B. Vance, Tia Carrere, Amy Hill, Jason Scott Lee Disney has finally done it. They've made a live-action remake of their own animated feature that's actually, really really good. Granted, the bar was really, really low in the first place. They've made more than 20 of these live-action remakes so far, and the results have ranged from 'So-so' ( Jungle Book , Maleficent , Mufasa ) and 'Meh' ( Aladdin , Beauty And the Beast , The Lion King ), to 'What were they thinking?' ( Mulan , Snow White , Pinnochio ). With Lilo & Stitch , however, Disney seems to have finally cracked the animation-to-live-action formula with this remake of their 2002 cult favourite hit, managing to strike a perfect balance between remaining faithful to the original while updating it for today's audiences. And the main reason for that is the fact that director Dean Fleischer Camp gets Lilo and Stitch, the two main characters, so perfectly right from the get go. Life is so breezy when you're in a jacuzzi. The remake stays pretty faithful to the animation in terms of story (with a few changes here and there). It revolves around mischievous yet resourceful six-year-old orphan Lilo (Maia Kealoha), whose only wish is to make one best friend. Her sister Nani (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong) is struggling between trying to make ends meet and convincing social worker Kume (Tia Carrere) that she is capable enough to be Lilo's legal guardian. Along comes the mischievous blue alien No.626 aka Stitch (Chris Sanders), created by mad scientist Dr. Jumba Jookiba (Zach Galifianakis) to be a weapon of destruction. Deemed too dangerous to be let loose, Stitch is exiled by the Grand Councilwoman (Hannah Waddingham), leader of the United Galactic Federation (UGF), but escapes and ends up on Earth. Ruff! See, I AM a real dog! There, he pretends to be a dog and follows Lilo home in order to evade the clutches of Dr Jumba and his partner, UGF Agent Pleakley (Billy Magnussen); as well as the wonderfully named CIA agent Cobra Bubbles (Courtney B. Vance). To tell the truth, this remake could have gone so wrong if they had gotten the lead characters wrong. Fortunately, the two lead characters are perfectly cast/rendered. Kealoha is a revelation as Lilo, playing her with enough cuteness and charm without crossing the line to becoming annoying. Nani always had trouble convincing Stitch to go for his vet check ups. The filmmakers have also done a remarkable job with Stitch – he fits into the real world setting completely and naturally, despite being a six-limbed blue furry alien, and they nailed all his facial expressions, body language, and his every movement perfectly. The supporting cast also turn in strong performances – Agudong is wonderful as the conflicted Nani, and it is a real pleasure to see alumni from the animated film (Hill, Lee and Carrere) appearing in the movie, especially Hill, in a more significant role as Nani and Lilo's neighbour, Tutu. Hey, I can fly a spaceship, how hard can driving this truck be? Another advantage Lilo & Stitch may have over its predecessors is that it is set in the modern world, so the live-action environment and human characters are not overshadowed by the more fantastical elements of the film (yes, even the aliens fit in perfectly). There's also not a single element that sticks out like a sore thumb in the way, say, the horrible animated dwarves in Snow White did. Tightly plotted, reasonably paced, full of charm and heart, and with wonderful characters to root for, this really is Disney's best live-action remake so far. Perhaps the best thing I can say about this movie is that I wouldn't mind watching it again, which is more than I can say about for the rest of them.
USA Today
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
New 'Lilo & Stitch' falls short of first film's unhinged brilliance
New 'Lilo & Stitch' falls short of first film's unhinged brilliance Show Caption Hide Caption 'Lilo & Stitch' trailer: Disney's furry alien goes live action Newcomer Maia Kealoha stars as a Hawaiian girl who makes friends with a furry ball of alien mayhem in Disney's live-action "Lilo & Stitch." If Disney were to replace Mickey Mouse as its mascot, the only choice that probably wouldn't cause a global riot is Stitch. That adorably furry mix of E.T., the Tasmanian Devil and a rambunctious puppy has become one of the most beloved animated characters in the company's iconic lineup. So it's a little head-scratching why there's not more of the big-eared alien weirdo in the new live-action remake 'Lilo & Stitch' (★★½ out of four; rated PG; in theaters May 23). Director Dean Fleischer Camp's family adventure feels like an excessively earnest Disney Channel movie compared with the delightfully unhinged 2002 cartoon. That's great for those who want more of a human connection but not so much if you're more jazzed about Stitch wrecking a bunch of stuff. The updated 'Lilo' pulls back on the sci-fi action to focus instead on the emotional story of two orphaned human siblings, though it begins the same as the first flick. Stitch (aka Experiment 626) is deemed too dangerous to exist by the United Galactic Federation, and escapes authorities in a flurry courtesy of a space police cruiser. Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox He crash lands in Hawaii near the home of young Lilo (newcomer Maia Kealoha). She's a rebellious 6-year-old who gives her big sister/guardian Nani (Sydney Agudong) fits, and Nani is desperately trying to keep social services from taking Lilo away. Lilo visits the local pound where she meets (and immediately falls for) Stitch, whom everyone assumes is a pooch even though he looks more like a blue koala bear. The sisters' lives get more fun and also more stressful as Stitch causes mayhem wherever he goes (from surfing and driving to some antics with a soda gun). Meanwhile, a couple of other aliens are dispatched to bring him back: his mad scientist inventor Jumba (Zach Galifianakis) and Earth-loving oddball Pleakley (Billy Magnussen). The new 'Lilo & Stitch' takes a much more grounded approach to the plot, with some changes from the original movie. For example, the antagonistic alien brute Captain Gantu is left out. While the OG Jumba and Pleakley wore random clothing as a disguise, their updated counterparts use holograms to appear human – which just seems to be an excuse to include a couple of recognizable faces. And Ving Rhames' tough-guy social worker Cobra Bubbles is essentially two characters in the remake: The new Cobra (Courtney B. Vance) is a CIA agent searching for Stitch, too, while Mrs. Kekoa (Tia Carrere) is the social worker concerned about Nani and Lilo's home life. One aspect that's improved in the revamp is Lilo and Nani's relationship. Kealoha is precocious enough as the Elvis-loving Lilo, leaning more troublemaker than her animated self. And Agudong makes the most of Nani's character reinvention. (Rather than just trying to get a job, she has a whole subplot about going to college to study marine biology.) There are some nifty nods to the first film. The casting of Carrere, who originally voiced Nani, is a nice touch. And Chris Sanders (who directed the animated version alongside Dean DeBlois) also returns to give voice to all Stitch's signature growls, snarls and yells. That old 'Ohana means family' riff still hits right in the feels, though what this latest outing lacks most is the first film's electric charm. It's surprising considering that Camp crafted the sweetly bizarre 'Marcel the Shell With Shoes On' – this 'Stitch' settles on being a fine retread instead of a rabble-rousing romp. Stitch, in his own peculiar way, sums it up perfectly: This 'Lilo & Stitch' is 'broken but still good.' Even if it's ultimately an unnecessary new take on a chaotic masterpiece.
