I took the first chance I had to take in the live action remake of Lilo & Stich and I have to say it actually translated and worked. The movie is different from the original in that there are characters missing and characters from the original are portrayed different. The story also focuses more on the family than the alien aspect of the story.
The movie accomplished the task of making a great animated movie translate to actual people and not relying on a shot for shot remake or completely changing the story people loved in the first place. The movie makes changes as I have said to the story but does so that makes it work better in a lot of cases. The main story is present but allows us to get to know characters like Nani better and gives her a proper backstory that was missing in the animated film. Most the actors played their parts amazingly notably Sydney Elizebeth Agudong as Nani Pelekai, Maia Kealoha as Lilo Pelekai and Amy Hill as the new character Tūtū and you may remember her voice from the original as Mrs. Hasagawa (the old fruit stand lady).
Where this movie I feel went wrong was speeding through the beginning where we are introduced to Stitch, Jumba and Pleakley. It just rushed to getting Stitch to Earth. Also I felt well Billy Magnussen did a great job with the voice, I feel like we never got the charm that made him likeable in the original plus the whimsy and was very one note. The bigger issue was with Jumba being played by Zach Galifianakis, as we just got Zach and nothing more, lacking the charm the original character had plus Zach voicing him as Zach, much how Chris Pratt voices all his characters didn’t work.
The movie as a whole was amazing and yes it had me tearing up much like the animated one did with different scenes. It also had some nice Easter eggs in there and took from other Lilo and Stitch animated franchises to include in the story. While I do wish it was a little more flushed out including the alien element and the “friends” of Lilo I still enjoyed it.
Final Grade: 8.5/10
Check out the trailer below:
– Everett
