My favorite childhood Disney movie was turned into a live-action movie. “Lilo & Stitch” was remade from an animated movie to a live-action movie. Was it too much? Did Disney do a good job? That’s what you’re about to find out. Here’s what I thought about Disney’s newest live-action remake:
Before you start reading, here’s a warning to you that this article CONTAINS SPOILERS! If you don’t want to have the movie spoiled before watching it, STOP READING HERE and come back after you watch!
Let’s start with a game: How many times do you think Ashley cried throughout the whole movie? Take your guess and you’ll find out the answer at the end!
First, let’s talk about the biggest elephant in the room: Gantu is not in the movie! Yes, I know, that’s crazy, and I highly disagree with Disney’s decision to remove him from the film. He was the main villain, so that means another character had to take over this role. Who is it? You’ll find out later in this review. But now, let’s start at the top.
The beginning of the movie felt extremely rushed. The first part is set at the Galactic Federation Headquarters, where they decide Jumba and Stitch’s fates, Stitch escapes and they assign Pleakley and Jumba to go down to Earth is only a total of five minutes long, whereas in the original, it was double!
It also felt very rushed when the movie transitioned to Lilo. One minute Lilo was running to her hula recital and another she was already home, locking Nani out and listening to Elvis. The first 15 minutes just felt extremely fast to me. But everything started to slow down to a normal pace after that point.
When the social worker showed up at the Pelekai house, I was very confused because it wasn’t Cobra Bubbles, but I knew he was in the movie. Instead, it was a woman. Cobra eventually made his appearance later in the movie as someone from the CIA trying to hunt down Stitch, which made me think he would be replacing Gantu as the villain. But not quite – we’ll get into that later.
At this point, since they’ve already added a few new characters, why not add another? Enter Tutu – who I think is David’s mom? – because at some point in the movie, she refers to “us” (her and David) as people Lilo could live with. But when looking it up online, it only refers to her as the Pelekais’ neighbor who knows them very well. Another confusing point, but I did enjoy the addition of her character.
Moving on to when Stitch landed in Hawaii, I thought they were going to completely get rid of the scene where he gets run over by a truck because he immediately crashed a wedding (not in the original). I was going to be upset about that, however, after the wedding, the scene did happen. Knowing all of this, I thought the addition of the wedding scene was great and funny!
Someone add a tally to the count because here’s the first scene I cried at: Lilo and Stitch meeting for the first time. I thought this scene was so wholesome – Stitch kept looking at the adoption poster and gave Lilo the hug she was craving. She had found her best friend, and it only gets better from here.
Now let’s talk about Pleakley, one of the funniest characters of the film. Billy Magnussen did an outstanding job playing this role. Some of the lines he said and the way he delivered them were an absolute masterpiece, especially the first scene where he turned human and tried to walk – it had everyone in the theater laughing!
The middle of the movie was mostly the same: David is awkward around Nani, Lilo and Stitch destroy Nani’s chances at getting a job everywhere she goes, Jumba and Pleakley (and now Cobra) are tracking Stitch, etc..
But here’s where it takes a turn – when Stitch dragged Lilo underwater after the unsuccessful attempt by Jumba and Pleakley to capture Stitch, she ended up going to the hospital. The social worker met Nani there, where she was told she would most likely have to give Lilo up to be able to pay for their hospital visit. I really felt for Nani in this scene because I know it would be a hard decision for her.
Nani explaining the situation to Lilo with Stitch overhearing just broke my heart. And it broke my heart even more when he returned to the animal rescue and put himself back in the cage he was brought in. Add another tally to the count!
At this point in the movie, it was about 70 minutes in and the large fountain drink and popcorn had caught up to me, so I had to sneak out to use the bathroom, but I’m pretty sure all I missed was Jumba and Stitch’s fight in the house, the house blowing up and Lilo getting captured (which is now by Jumba and not Gantu). That’s right – JUMBA IS THE VILLAIN!
Of course, Lilo and Stitch had a plan and Jumba ended up flying out of the ship, which was surprising to me that they would kill off a character, but I knew it was too good to be true because he ended up living 15 minutes later.
This is where the ship crashed into the ocean after the Pelekai family picture flew from Lilo’s pocket and I really started to sob. Lilo was stuck under a piece of the ship at the bottom of the ocean, and Stitch swam down to save her. But if you remember, Stitch has a great molecular density that causes him to sink underwater. After saving Lilo, they tried to swim to the top, but Stitch couldn’t, sealing his fate.
Nani and David came to save Lilo, but neither of them could lift Stitch to the top. *Insert uncontrollable sobs of sadness* But then Nani came to save the day and ran to shore from the middle of the ocean to save Stitch.
Stitch was unconscious, making me cry even more when they tried to revive him with paddles and it was unsuccessful. However, Lilo had the bright idea to revive him with the jumper cables from Nani’s truck. HE LIVES!
I stopped crying until Stitch revealed he saved the Pelekai photo that meant so much to Lilo. What is that now – four times? Anyways, we’re back in the original movie where the Grand Councilwoman came to Hawaii to take back Stitch.
Guess what I did? Cried again! Because they kept Stitch’s line the exact same from the original movie to this one when telling the Grand Councilwoman about his family – “This is my family. I found it all on my own. It’s little and broken, but good. Yeah, still good.” It’s one of my favorite lines of the whole movie.
Although it didn’t happen when it was supposed to, Elvis Stitch made his appearance at the end of the movie. Also Nani went to school for the “marines” (If you know, you know). The ending was very cute and I like how they kept the end scenes partially like the original – instead of it being flashbacks of scenes like when Stitch was doing laundry or baking a cake, they made it be in drawings instead.
Overall I am very happy with how this movie turned out. Even though it was not the same as the original, it still kept most scenes and added scenes that were a great fit to the movie. But if I had to pick one over the other, I would always pick the original because nothing is better than the original!
What did you think of the movie? Let me know by messaging me on Instagram or TikTok @HappilyyEverAshley with your thoughts! Also, if you guessed five for the cry count, congratulations, you won the game!
