Lilo & Stitch (2025)

2002 saw the release of Lilo & Stitch, which launched one of Disney’s most lucrative franchises that continues to see legacy support in some way, shape or form. As an anecdotal testament to this, I’ve attended the Animation Academy attraction twice on a trip the California Adventure park, where a Disney animator guides guests through drawing a character, and there was some crowd control for drawing Stitch in particular. 2025 eventually saw the franchise enter Disney’s recent push for remaking their animated films into live-action and/or very realistic CG, with the remake simply bearing the Lilo & Stitch moniker. As someone who is largely not a fan of this second wave of remakes, I was turned off enough by the announcement to not see it in a theater, but decided out of morbid curiosity to watch it anyway after it made its way to Disney+ just to see how bad it was. After satisfying my curiosity, I feel that skipping the theater was the right call on this one.

While the remake starts off the same as the animated film, even featuring a shot-for-shot recreation of the opening sequence with the Galactic Federation, it quickly deviates from the 2002 original while still trying to hit many of the same story beats amidst some odd pacing. Having Lilo and Nani live next to a helpful neighbor, Tūtū (Amy Hill), to explore the meaning of “Ohana” is an interesting idea, but that leads to some remade scenes replacing Nani with her or David, which leads to something feeling missing from Lilo and Nani’s dynamic. On that, where the original film had Lilo and Nani remain together despite everything that happens, the remake seems keen on splitting them apart, even with a convenient explanation at the end, that arguably undermines the “Ohana” concept.

 

This moment, while still funny, doesn't land as well here.

Although the character of Gantu didn’t have much screen time in the original, his removal in the remake has more of a ripple effect than one might think, particularly throwing off Jumba’s character arc and swerving in a new direction that makes him far less endearing. Stitch’s arc is largely retained, but the removal of the parallels made with The Ugly Duckling leads to an arguably less impactful moment when he questions his place in Lilo’s family dynamic. Additionally, while casting Tia Carrere as the social worker is a funny choice, the decision to split Cobra Bubbles (Courtney B. Vance) into a separate character makes him feel less interesting, more so with the alteration to one interaction at the end.

Since the movie is a live-action/CG hybrid, I have some more specific opinions on the visual effects. While Jumba and other alien characters look mostly okay in CG, Stitch and Pleakley look off compared with their 2D designs. I was not a fan of live-action Stitch’s design when it was first revealed, but I warmed up to it the more I saw it in motion; this, however, only applies to how he is seen from the front, as his side profile is a bit too flat-faced for my taste and removes some of the “ugly cute” factor that his 2D design had. On that note, the design of Jumba’s new portal gun reminded me in both design and function of a certain model from Aperture Science (it does not help I have a replica of the one used by P-Body within arm’s reach of where I am typing this).

 

Stitch looks decent, but only from the front.

For the most part, the movie is actually pretty well-cast. Courtney B. Vance isn’t Ving Rhames, but he still delivers a good performance as Cobra Bubbles that fits well with the character. Chris Sanders may not have been involved creatively with this film, but he still delivers as good as ever as the voice of Stitch. Billy Magnussen is actually pretty decent as Pleakley, but the same unfortunately can’t be said about Zach Galifianakis, who proved to be a questionable casting choice for Jumba, mainly due to his unfitting voice.

It’s clear what Lilo & Stitch (2025) is trying to do to set it apart from its original animated counterpart, but in doing so it lacks a lot of the same heart. Some fans of the franchise may not care as much about the differences, but for those who are new to it, I would highly suggest watching the animated version instead. Interestingly, while a sequel has already been greenlit (which may or may not end up being a remake of Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch), Chris Sanders is back at the helm for the first time since the original 2002 film, which actually has me interested to see how this new timeline plays out.