‘Lilo & Stitch’ Review: Disney’s Latest Live-Action Remake Is A Sweet But Sluggish Adaptation

Since The Jungle Book in 1994, Disney has remade or provided live-action sequels for 27 of its original animated creations, with a reported 10 or so still in development. The practice hasn’t always been easy to justify on artistic levels, with most recent “interpretations” since 2015’s Cinderella failing to meet any kind of positive critical quorum. But the films keep coming, regardless, and sheer money may be the reason: Beauty & The Beast (2017), Aladdin (2019) and The Lion King (2019) all grossed over $1 billion, the latter of which is Disney’s fifth highest-grossing film of all time.

This has led to the fairly obvious conclusion that this substratum of Disney’s movie-making is nothing more than brand promotion and capital gain. Many of these films, the recent Snow White most nefarious amongst them, are leaden with uncanny valley CGI, bizarre green screen devotion and a surprising lack of artistic intent.

Enter Lilo & Stitch, in some ways an odd choice to join this cavalcade. Though the 2002 original animated film was popular, it hardly has the name recognition as its more fairytale-adjacent peers in the Disney catalog. But, despite a reportedly rocky development process (and legitimate concerns over the whitewashed casting of the role of Nani), Dean Fleischer Camp‘s take on the chaos agent alien and his impact on a small Hawaiian community is a mostly pleasant affair. The script, penned by Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes, cleverly keeps most of the bedrock of its predecessor while appropriately accommodating for 23 years of cultural changes and the shift from animation to live action. It’s a sweet film, succeeding where other remakes have failed, namely in adhering closely to the core message of what inspired it without falling too deep down the rabbit hole of computer-generated slop.

The story here remains largely unchanged from Chis Sanders’ original script. Experiment 626 (Sanders) is an adorable but vicious creation designed for planetary destruction by the evil, egotistical scientist Dr. Jumba Jookiba (Zach Galifianakis). After the Grand Councilwoman (Hannah Waddingham) sentences the “disgusting” creature to a lifetime of confinement, he quickly escapes and crash-lands on Kaua’i in a quiet part of town. The Grand Councilwoman sends Jumba, along with Earth specialist Pleakley (Billy Magnussen), to retrieve 626 in exchange for the former’s freedom. But the creature is quickly adopted by Lilo (Maia Kealoha), a precocious child with a special love for animals, at a kennel where he has been mistaken for an ugly dog. Much to Lilo’s older sister Nani’s (Sydney Agudong) objections, the “dog” comes home. Lilo renames him Stitch.

Since their parents’ deaths, Nani has been Lilo’s legal guardian, but her ability to care for her younger sibling is questionable, and the pressure to provide a more stable home environment grows with each visit from social worker Mrs. Kekoa (Tia Carrere, who voiced Nani in the original). Meanwhile, a dogged undercover CIA agent, Cobra Bubbles (Courtney B. Vance in a role that has been retooled from the one Ving Rhames once voiced) pursues the truth behind Stitch’s origins. Fleischer and company have added a hat on a hat for Nani who is not only staring down the barrel of constant financial insecurity but also buried dreams; she has apparently deferred acceptance to UCSD’s prestigious marine biology program in order to stay home with Lilo. As Lilo and Stitch grow closer, Nani’s desperation to keep her sister close grows more frantic, all the while Pleakley and Jumba repeatedly fall over each other to try and catch their prey.

There’s a lot going on. The chaos of these moving pieces is partly what made the original so successful, a carnival of hilarious and poignant ping-ponging elements. But here, the scales are too often tipped into the realm of the treacly, and the entire affair feels a bit sluggish. Stitch’s unquenchable taste for madness was mirrored by the fervor of the animation; here the film stops its own momentum too often to check in again on the real-world implications of everything that’s at stake. Repeated references to Nani’s quieted aspirations effectively make her more the protagonist than Lilo, which means the film can sometimes feel like a story about a promising young woman being dragged down by her unruly sibling. The interplay between Pleakley and Jumba is more miss than hit, with Galifianakis seeming a bit uncomfortable in a role that is more straight than his buffoonish calling card. To put it simply, the film is just not very funny, and overall has the telegenic weight and texture of the direct-to-TV originals they used to churn out more regularly.

But the film does succeed as an effectively warm ode to a family dynamic not frequently represented in popular media. Camp, whose previous work as the co-creator and steward of the Marcel the Shell character with ex-wife Jenny Slate, is an inspired choice, as his ability to hoover out the most pathos possible from the smallest creature available may now be something of a signature. E.T.-like, Lilo & Stitch demonstrates how the vacancy left by destruction can, optimistically, be filled with love and devotion, and that family can look like anything so long as it isn’t conditionally based. And maybe that a little chaos every now and again is a good thing.

Title: Lilo & Stitch
Distributor: Disney
Release date: May 23, 2025
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Screenwriters: Chris Kekaniokalani Bright & Mike Van Waes
Cast: Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders, Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Billy Magnussen, Zach Galifianakis, Courtney B. Vance, Hannah Waddingham, Kaipo Dudoit, Tia Carrere
Rating: PG
Running time: 1 hr 47 mins