Director – Dean Fleischer Camp, Screenplay – Chris Kekaniokalani Bright & Mike Van Waes, Based on the Film Lilo & Stitch (2002) Written by Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders, Producers – Jonathan Eirich & Dan Lin, Photography – Nigel Bluck, Music – Dan Romer, Visual Effects Supervisor – Craig Hammack, Animation Supervisor – Eric Guaglione, Visual Effects/Animation – Industrial Light & Magic (Supervisors – Bruno Baron & Will Reichelt, Animation Supervisors – Christopher Grant Marshall & Matthew Shumway), Special Effects Supervisor – John Hartigan, Production Design – Todd Cherniawsky. Production Company – Disney/Rideback Productions.
Cast
Maia Kealoha (Lilo Pelekai), Sydney Elizabeth Agudong (Nani Pelekai), Chris Sanders (Stitch), Zach Galifianakis (Dr Jumba Jookiba), Billy Magnussen (Wendell Pleakley), Courtney B. Vance (Cobra Bubbles), Amy Hill (Tutu), Tia Carrere (Mrs Kekoa), Kaipo Dudoit (David Kawena), Hannah Waddingham (Grand Councilwoman), Jason Scott Lee (Lu’au Manager)
Plot
Dr Jumba Jookiba is brought before the Galactic Federation because of his creation of Experiment 626, a small creature of wild ferocity. 626 is sentenced to be destroyed but makes an escape in a ship only to crash on Earth on the island of Hawaii. Jumba is despatched to recapture 626 accompanied by Agent Pleakley where they adopt human disguises to hide their alien form. 626 is run over in the street and taken to a dog shelter. There 626 is found by Lilo Pelekai who names it Stitch and insists on adopting it. She takes it back home where she is raised by her older sister Nani. There Stitch proceeds to causes absolute chaos with its wild, uncontrolled behaviour. As Nani despairs, Lilo bonds with Stitch, but Jumba and Pleakley are searching for them.
Lilo & Stitch (2002) was one of the big hits for Disney animation during the 2000s. It was their second biggest animated box-office hit of that decade following Dinosaur (2000), earning some $273.1 million worldwide. The success saw a couple of direct-to-video animated sequels and three videogames. It also launched the careers of co-directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois.
The idea of the live-action remake of a Disney film stretches back to the 1990s with The Jungle Book (1994) and 101 Dalmatians (1996). The fad took off in a big way in the 2010s with the likes of Maleficent (2014), Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Aladdin (2019), Dumbo (2019), Lady and the Tramp (2019), The Lion King (2019), Mulan (2020), Cruella (2021), Pinocchio (2022), The Little Mermaid (2023), Peter Pan and Wendy (2023) and Snow White (2025). Lilo & Stitch comes after the flop of Snow White that seemed to promise an end to the Disney remake machine for about five minutes. As I write, it just finished earning a billion dollars worldwide in contrast to Snow White’s $202 million and now the Disney remake bus seems to be set back on track.
The live-action Lilo & Stitch comes from Dean Fleischer Camp who emerged with the Marcel the Shell With Shoes On short films released to YouTube featuring an animated shell telling its life story. This culminated in an absolutely delightful feature film Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2021), which I happily nominated as my Best Film of 2021. (In an odd coincidence, Lilo & Stitch’s original co-director Dean DeBlois directed a live-action remake of his animated film How to Train Your Dragon (2025) that premiered a month after Lilo & Stitch cane out). The remakes gets in live-action reappearances from Tia Carrere and Jason Scott Lee who did voice appearances in the original, while original co-director Chris Sanders returns to voice the role of Stitch.
Stitch and Lilo (Maia Kealoha)
The Disney live-action remake is perhaps the purest example of what Umberto Eco called ‘hyperreality’ in his essay Travels in Hyperreality (1986), which he defined as the reproduction of reality with such detail that the copy becomes more real than the original. These remakes are like the cover band versions of Disney animated classics – you go because you are a fan of the originals and it is fun to see it played out by actors but have no engagement with who is putting the show on. I have a dim view of the Disney live-action remake – the only two of the modern ones I have even remotely liked so far have been Cinderella and The Jungle Book. The rest have been empty shells of their predecessors.
You can’t really complain as Lilo & Stitch gives exactly what it promises – a run through of the original enacted with live actors and a CGI Stitch. The plot is basically the same, minus the removal of the character of Gantu who pursues Stitch in the second half of the original. It is amiable enough. The characters however lack the vibrancy they had on the page. Sydney Elizabeth Agudong makes an okay Nani but young Maia Kealoha seems like a Lilo that has shrunk in the wash – she is a tiny stick figure compared to the much more rounded Lilo we had in animation and speaks in a high register child’s voice that seems to take Lilo back to a pre-school level.
My issue might be that the 2002 original had a good deal of creative visual energy. In replicating that in live-action, what it comes out resembling is less visual creativity than a lot of comic knockabouts antics. My viewing companion, who hasn’t seen the original enjoyed it, but to me seeing the energy of the original in live-action felt down around the level of the slapstick silliness of an E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) copy like Mac and Me (1988) or Purple People Eater (1988). And it is all delivered in a way that fails to engage anything in the film mentally for a person over about the age of eight – it is all slapstick chaos and cute togetherness cuddles and almost nothing else.
