Disney’s latest live-action re-envisioning deals out yet a new flesh and cgi take on another beloved animated masterpiece – this time a personal favorite of mine 2002’s Lilo & Stitch, Chris Sanders’ co-directorial debut. Unlike most Disney titles this was one that I came to as an adult, and dug because of how it pushed the boundaries of what you would expect from a Disney film with its little blue anti-hero. Stitch starts the film as a monster, and ends the film having discovered the importance of family and being a better person thanks to a young pair of orphaned sisters Lilo and her older sister Nani, who take him in as their own.
If you’re unfamiliar with the particulars of Lilo and Stitch, it follows experiment 626, a super cute genetically engineered alien bio-weapon, who escapes from captivity and crash lands on earth, on one of the islands of Hawaii. As a weapon he was made to target and destroy large metropolises, but thanks to his one limitation – that getting wet increases his density sinking him like a lead weight, drowning him, it effectively strands him on the island in the middle of nowhere. Of course, hijinks ensue as more aliens are sent to the planet to recapture him, as he embeds himself with a lonely young girl – Lilo Peleka (here played by Maia Kealoha) who wished for a friend, with 626 pretending to be just that in her new dog. Lilo & Stitch(2002) was edgy for a Disney animated feature and I figured its counterpart would be nothing less, I just didn’t anticipate what would happen when the film literally lost those softer animated edges.
The first act of this re-imagining really struggles, we have a bunch of things happening that all feel somewhat independent of the other. Once Stitch enters the mix with Lilo however, it feels a bit more cohesive as a narrative thankfully, but still somewhat fractured up until the end. While young Maia Kealoha somehow carries the film on her young shoulders, she visibly struggles in some of the more intimate scenes with her older on screen sibling played by Sydney Elizebeth Agudong who’s craft is much more developed. Sure they’re acting together in some scenes, but there’s a visible space between the two that is almost as evident as some of the really strange petting scenes with Stitch where hands will go through/into him in an odd PS1 game glitch sort of way. Don’t get me wrong Stitch does look amazing here, but once you notice it, you can’t not see it when there’s an interaction.
That original animated film broke with Disney’s MO with not only its anarchic lead, but its lush 2D watercolor world, complemented with a more rounded art style, when it came to its characters. When I heard this was the next title to get the ol’ Disney Double Dip, I was honestly optimistic given the film’s story didn’t feel like it could be over politicized as something it’s not, and it’s hard to project anything political on a six year old protagonist who just wants friends. Oddly what I didn’t foresee and neither did the filmmakers, is its loyalty to the source material that would feel much more dire and bleak when brought into the real world and we lose that safety net of the Disney cartoon bubble, where only parents aren’t safe. In real life families get broken up. In real life people become homeless and people and aliens also die.
I think removing that safety net of animation really ups the stakes and the stress Nani and the audience is under(This is a kid’s film after all), as protective services wants to take away Lilo, while Stitch is being hunted by Pleakley and Dr. Jumba. There’s also a really oddly nightmarish scene that has Lilo drowning as Stitch is trying to use her to climb to the surface to stay afloat, that’s much more intense than the animated film, that really would have me thinking, I would have dropped Stitch off at the “farm”. Sure, he’s lovable and cute, but the film never really forces him to have that visible moment of clarity once he can’t fulfill his destructive intended purpose. In the animated film the crux of this thematic turn is realized in a touching scene when Stitch happens upon the children’s book, The Ugly Duckling, about a duckling that no one wants because he’s different, but discovers where he belongs with his new family and right there Stitch is humanized in a way I don’t think happens in the live action version. It’s just one minute he’s terrible, and one moment he’s not or slightly better after almost killing Lilo.
Lilo & Stitch sometimes works, and sometimes does not. Maia Kealoha is a joy. Stitch looks great. But the film struggles to keep the pieces moving and in sync, while struggling to keep the audience invested in the heart of this piece, which is sometimes the sisters and sometimes the film’s namesake duo. I also feel like they over complicated the conflict between the sisters, Nani is not only struggling with proving she can take care of her troublesome sister and her alien pet, but keep a job and somehow go away to college to become a marine biologist. It’s a lot that is heaped upon her character’s shoulders, which makes Lilo and Stitch’s antics in the real world more distressing than adventurous as they once were. While it’s not a bad movie, it doesn’t have anything new to say and unlike Stitch I’m not sure this film has a purpose other than to be a glorified IP commercial to reinvigorate the sale of Stitch plushies.
