Lilo & Stitch: is Disney's latest live-action remake its worst yet?

"Disney may have gone too far, turning perhaps its single greatest animated film into a heavily CG-augmented quasi-live-action monstrosity", said Jesse Hassenger in The Guardian.

No, I'm not talking about the "already-infamous box office bomb 'Snow White'". Now, the studio has turned its hand to "Lilo & Stitch": a "rare sui generis piece of Disney animation" from 2002, about an orphaned little girl in Hawaii, who befriends a "stranded alien" and takes him home to live with her sister. Blending "ultra-expressive hand-drawn animation and watercolour backgrounds" with "dashes of newfangled computer animation", the original film was a "triumph". But this "unnecessary" remake is a "ghastly misfire".

'Cheap branded knock-off'

The story remains mostly intact and Stitch has been transferred into the 3D live-action environment well enough: kids will love the "fuzzy blue creature" with his "alien-bunny ears". However, the few "affecting and funny" moments are recycled from the original movie and almost always turn out a "little bit worse" than before.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Director Dean Fleischer Camp gives the actors barely any technical support in their "impossible task" and it often feels as if the actors are "performing into a void". While the original film sits comfortably among classic children's stories like "My Neighbour Totoro", the live-action remake feels like a "cheap branded knock-off".

"Exhaustive" merchandising had already turned Stitch into the "non-consenting emblem of millennial cringe", said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent. So it's little surprise to find Disney has rendered him in "spiritless CGI" and butchered "his character arc in favour of an extended sequence of him driving around in a little pink car". This "flattening of Stitch into a blander, more marketable product is business as usual for Disney".

Despite being co-written by Hawaiian filmmaker Chris Kekaniokalani Bright, there's little to suggest a "deeper sense of place and culture" and the "running joke" where Lilo takes photos of the tourists who are photographing her has been removed from the live-action remake with "depressing" predictability. (Disney opened a resort on Oahu in 2011.)

'Charm and humour'

Tamed into one of those "naughty-pet family comedies" that were popular in the 90s, it's a "lively, funny and colourful" remake, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph. In the aftermath of the "'Snow White' debacle", audiences won't feel "alienated" by anything here, which makes this "Lilo & Stitch" feel "more like a product" than the original – "but at least it's a sturdily built one".

Maia Kealoha is a "perfect" Lilo, bringing just the right "charm and humour" to the character, said Eric Goldman on IGN, and her natural rapport with older sister Nani (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong) makes it hard not to invest in the siblings. Packed with "oodles of oddball charm", the "classy" cast adds "credibility and comic chops" to the original material, said Emma Simmonds in Radio Times.

What starts out as a "shot-for-shot remake" soon unfurls into a more "nuanced" take on the story's themes, which is "recognisable" but distinct from the original movie, said Mary Kassel on ScreenRant. As "the kind of summer adventure kids and adults will be happy to sink their teeth into", I have no doubt "Lilo & Stitch" will be a "smash hit".

Disney's latest offering already looks set to "make a killing at the box office", added Loughrey in The Independent. "And who will be rubbing their hands with glee at that news? Primark, no doubt."