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Every time I visit Disney World, I find it strange that—along with Disney staples like Mickey and Minnie, the princesses, and the Toy Story gang—alien fugitive Stitch from 2002’s Lilo & Stitch has a pretty high profile in the parks. He’s on shirts and pins and other merchandise, and he even has his very own attraction—yet I never saw the film as a particularly memorable one. So I saw the film’s Blu-ray release as my chance to take another look—and to see what the fuss is about.
Lilo & Stitch is the story of an illegal experiment that gets out of hand. On a faraway planet, the evil scientist Dr. Jumba Jookiba (voiced by David Ogden Stiers) creates Experiment #626, a being created to be an invincible fighting machine. When the doctor is arrested, the Galactic Council decides to exile his experiment on a distant asteroid—but it escapes with a stolen vehicle and lands on Earth.
After a series of mishaps, the experiment finds his way into the home of a lonely little Hawaiian girl named Lilo (Daveigh Chase). Lilo lives with her older sister, Nani (Tia Carrere), but a social worker is keeping a close eye on the two. And with a deadly alien experiment living in their home—and two other aliens trying to capture it—things are bound to go wrong.
Lilo & Stitch is a strange little film with a strange little story about what it means to be a family. And, as a result of some of the film’s unexpected pairings, the whole thing tends to feel a little bit off-balance—for better or for worse. At times, it feels as though Stitch and his fellow aliens simply stumbled into the wrong movie. With its lush, tropical setting and its Elvis soundtrack, this sweet family drama doesn’t seem like the right fit for a bunch of troublemaking aliens—but that’s also what makes the movie unique.
In the same way, the film’s main characters are often strikingly dissimilar: Lilo is an orphaned little girl who lives in a tropical paradise, while her new pet, Stitch, is a destructive alien life form that’s trying to evade capture. At the same time, though, the two also have their share of similarities. Both are lonely—and both have a tendency to lash out when they feel hurt or threatened. In a way, that makes them sympathetic characters, though their outbursts and general troublemaking sometimes make them hard to like. Sure, Lilo is a sad little orphaned girl with a precarious family situation—and, sure, she’s often bullied by mean little girls—but that doesn’t really make hair-pulling and fist-fighting okay. Stitch, too, is nothing but trouble, using Lilo as a shield to protect him from would-be captors.
Still, the characters do have their lovable moments, too. Brawling aside, Lilo is just plain irresistible in her little flowered dress. And even Stitch has his moments of, well, humanity, as he settles into his new family.
Lilo & Stitch certainly has its charms. The setting is gorgeous, and the characters and their stories might just tug at your heartstrings from time to time. While it doesn’t necessarily deserve a place of honor among Disney classics, this unconventional family drama is still worth watching with your family.
Blu-ray Review:
The three-disc Blu-ray/DVD release of Disney’s Lilo & Stitch doesn’t include any new special features—but it does include a second film: the direct-to-video release, Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch. So if your kids love this diverse duo, they’ll enjoy this two-movie collection.
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