While the 2002 animated sci-fi comedy, Lilo & Stitch, deservedly received a lot of praise when it came out and performed well at the box office and with critics during a time when Disney was not at their highest peak, it was still surprising to see it quickly and effectively form into a franchise, one that managed to hold onto its special sauce. With film continuations, tv shows, merchandising, and even an anime to their name, it felt like Disney noticed its potential and effectively took advantage of it, even during phases that most other Disney properties couldn’t survive, like direct-to-DVD sequels. So, it’s only tragically fitting that it wouldn’t be able to survive Disney’s latest (and arguably laziest) trend, the live-action remake, with a 2025 feature that did little to improve on what many consider to be an outdated fad that should’ve already been put to rest.

On the island of Hawaii, a young girl named Lilo (played by Maia Kealoha) is a social outcast with no friends, and with her older sister, Nani (played by Sydney Elizabeth Agudong) being thrust into the role of parent after their mother and father recently died and having to prove to social services that she can appropriately look after Lilo, she doesn’t really have anyone to turn to. After wishing on a shooting star for a friend, Lilo meets a strange blue dog while visiting the local pound and decides to adopt him, giving him the name of Stitch (voiced again by Chris Sander). Unbeknownst to the sisters, Stitch is actually a dangerous rogue alien experiment that escaped to Earth after fleeing captivity, with the leader of the United Galactic Federation, The Grand Councilwoman (voiced by Hannah Waddingham) sending the creator of Stitch (or rather his actual name, Experiment 626), Dr. Jumba Jookiba (voiced by Zach Galifianakis), and Earth enthusiast, Agent Pleakly (voiced by Billy Magnussen) to apprehend this universal threat. Staying with Lilo in order to avoid capture from the two aliens (who pose as humans staying at a resort to spy on him), Stitch slowly starts to form a real bond with this little girl, which has the potential to fix his bad programming, turn him into a good creature, and maybe even along the way, help mend this broken family.

While not as offensively bad as other Disney live-action remakes, the 2025 rendition of Lilo & Stitch is vastly inferior to its predecessor, failing at capturing the quiet beauty of the original feature and instead produces something with a mangled plot, poorly adapted characters, washed-out visuals, and a very unemotional script.

The notion of remaking Lilo & Stitch is already ridiculous since there aren’t that many new directions this heavily recycled plotline of ‘’hiding an alien creature as a pet’’ can go down, but the original animated feature already put it off so well that it just feels like a waste to even try, making it even clearer how its only purpose is solely to bank on nostalgia. This scheme seemed to work at first, as the trailers were more positively received, and though people had seemingly woken up to the ridiculousness of this trend after the critical and box office disaster that was the 2025 remake of Snow White, it seemed enough good will had been build up after Stitch’s design was accurately translated in live action with CGI that people were willing to give it a shot. It’s a shame then that that confidence was unfounded, as this is yet another instance of Disney sucking out the originality, flavor and soul from one of their own movies, and repackaging it for a new generation at a much lower quality, which doesn’t even come as a surprise anymore. The changes don’t improve or meaningfully alter the story and more so confuse the purpose and message it originally created, the old scenes are thankfully not beat-for-beat identical to the original, but still feel half as passionate and nowhere near as emotionally engaging, and even though it doesn’t do anything horrendous on the surface, it feels so devoid of freshness or any sense of surprise or sparkle, that it is instantly forgettable, there is very little to hold onto after leaving this remake.

To be fair to this film, there is at least some effort put into certain areas to keep it from being a total wash, but even these aspects aren’t entirely safe. The directing by Dean Fleischer Camp does on occasion work in the film’s favor, but it is often counteracted by something that doesn’t work in its favor; sometimes the film will have solid comedic timing but other times will be entirely off, sometimes the film slows down to provide a decent softer moments but other times the speed at which certain scenes are rushed through prevents any chance to get invested in what should be crucial plot points, and while Camp seems like a capable director due to making the 2021 Oscar-nominated mockumentary animated film, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, he feels like the wrong pick for this story, with his more modern, down-to-earth and dry style of directing not meshing well with this premise. A good chunk of the blame should go to screenwriters, Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes, who showcase their limited writing experience (with this being their first and only feature film job) with a script peppered with bland dialogue, unmemorable sequences, no real sense of conflict or drama, ineffective humor, and an inability to invoke the heartfelt honesty of the original film.

Considering Stitch is one of Disney’s biggest and most merchandisable characters, that alone would be enough reason to remake the movie, as well as create a similar marketing strategy to the original film with Stitch interrupting other commercials (it didn’t really match the style or tone of the eventual film, but was still memorable), but strangely, he doesn’t feel like the main character in his own movie this time around. The film does at least remember that Lilo and her relationship with Nani was one of the film’s best aspects and it does provide a few sisterly exchanges that at least try to mirror how they were portrayed originally, but because of how much this story has been shaken up and entire scenes, arcs and even characters have been excluded, there’s a far more noticeable imbalance between the two halves of this plot. The alien portion feels largely downplayed (probably for budgetary reasons) and this refusal to feature them more, actively hurts the characters attached to it, especially Stitch. While his design is well realized (even if it’s a little muted in the color department), he doesn’t truly feel like a character anymore, but fittingly enough, more like a pet that provides cutesy sequences.  His arc is largely absent, his design looks the part but doesn’t feel as expressive, and because he’s stuck in the real world, a lot of his crazy antics are heavily subdued to compensate, he just doesn’t spark the same way he did in animation.

Lilo was and arguably still is one of Disney’s greatest kid characters and was wonderfully brought to life by Daveigh Chase, so finding someone to replicate that wouldn’t be easy, and even though this portrayal doesn’t really work, it’s not the fault of the actress. Maia Kealoha is very cute and for a first acting job, doesn’t do too bad (especially considering she has to act against so many CGI beings), but this version of Lilo doesn’t have that much personality, and therefore just feels like a generic kid who says generic kid things, which is nowhere near as special. Sydney Elizabeth Agudong does a pretty good job as Nani even with pretty generic writing, but even most of her scenes feel largely different now that they’ve given her a new subplot about travelling abroad to study, which is fine, but doesn’t really add that much. The rest of the cast act their parts okay, but the characters aren’t written well enough to match them. While Billy Magnussen does work as a humanoid version of Pleakly (despite not really having a lot to do), Zach Galifianakis is awful as Jumba, having the wrong voice, attitude and style of acting for this role which has also been warped into a much less interesting version, it’s an all-around failure. Cameos from people like Jason Scott Lee, Tia Carrere, and Amy Hill are fine but could’ve been removed without much issue, and people like Courtney B. Vance and Hannah Waddingham do good impressions of returning characters, yet don’t feel as useful to the story anymore.

If there was anything about Lilo & Stitch that would benefit from being in live action, it’d be seeing Hawaii in all its glory. While the water color backgrounds from the original animated movie did help highlight the location’s lush, tropical, and very friendly atmosphere in a pleasant and distinct manner, getting the chance to witness such an environment physically would make for a lot of great culture and a lot of great eye-candy. However, it somehow also manages to mess this aspect up as well, and it doesn’t come from active poor handling, but rather just seeming lack of an attempt. Despite filming on location, the way it presents it feels very generic, with very basic shots done with very cramped and straightforward angles, the color grading on practically everything feels bleached and dry which makes what should be a tropical paradise feel over exposed and dim, and because even the effects aren’t really great or creative enough to have a distinct identity, there’s sadly nothing visually compelling to see in this feature, which is a really shame in a story that had such chaotic sci-fi action and contraptions. Even the music doesn’t feel as special anymore, with the returning songs whether created for the film or sourced from Elvis just feeling like ticking boxes rather than being put in to provide a specific purpose.

The original Lilo & Stitch will forever stand as one of Disney’s best films for its heartfelt plot involving two sisters trying to figure things out during a messy period of their lives (with a nice dose of spaceship battles and alien havoc thrown in to spice things up). While abnormal for the company, it more than earned its status as a classic, so it’s a shame to see it redone without any of the same kind of energy, life, or even uniqueness, but these remakes leave so little impact at this point that it doesn’t even feel worth getting insulted over it. This movie will leave your mind the second you’ve exited the theatre, and even if there are a few scenes that work okay and the actors are all trying, it just doesn’t serve any creative purpose outside of earning bank from people who refuse to say no to the familiar. There are definitely worse examples of this trend, but it’s safe to say that this latest attempt was a defective experiment.

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