starring: maia kealoha, sydney agudong, billy magnussen, and zach galifanakis

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REVIEWER: Lyall carter

A lonely Hawaiian girl befriends a runaway alien, helping to mend her fragmented family.

What Aladdin and The Lion King is to millennials, Treasure Planet and Lilo & Stitch is to Gen Z. A part of their growing up and childhood, awash with nostalgia, Disney’s live action reimaging of Lilo & Stitch could have just been a lifeless shot for shot remake of the 2002 animated classic drained of any originality and substance. Instead, Lilo & Stitch is a gorgeous Disney family film of the best kind, bursting with creativity and heart.

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Lilo Pelekai is a 6-year-old girl living in Hawai’i who longs for a best friend. When her neighbour, Tūtū, allows Lilo to visit the local animal shelter (where she loves to spend time feeding candy to the stray dogs), Lilo brings home a wild and impulsive creature who seems intent on causing chaos. 

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Even if you’re not familiar with the Disney animated classic on which it's based, you’ll have no worries at all getting into the story of Lilo & Stitch. At its heart Lilo & Stitch is a tale of two lonely misfits who are searching for belonging and ultimately family. In this re-imaging, Disney artfully brings narrative depth to this through the development of Lilo’s character (wonderfully portrayed by Maia Kealoha). Here we see more of her struggle to fit in with the world around her and the tension in the relationship with her sister Nani. 

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As well as developing the character of Stitch, the film has additional characters like Tūtū, Lilo’s neighbor, which adds to the sense of chosen family and the beauty of community. There’s a particular character who was in the original animated film who is missing here, but it makes a lot of sense for the pacing of the film to roll his function into that of another character. 

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Always when you’re handling such a beloved character like Stitch’s transformation from hand drawn animation to CGI, there can be a little apprehension around whether it really will work. The CGI work here is superb with the effects artists wonderfully capturing the essence of the animators magic.

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Lilo & Stitch is a gorgeous Disney family film of the best kind, bursting with creativity and heart.

★★★★