Lilo & Stitch: A live-action remake about an unlikely friendship and finding family

The live-action remakes of Disney’s beloved animated films have always been burdened by two fundamental problems.

The first, and this applies to all remakes, is that too much fidelity to the source material saps the movies of energy and enjoyable unpredictability. The best of Disney’s cartoon-to-flesh-and-blood efforts have been those that go off-script; that jettison the recreation of fan-favourite moments to play in those worlds and/or tell different stories. As examples, Cruella, The Jungle Book and Cinderella all feel like their own independent beasts, with distinct creative drives.

The second issue is that almost all the photorealistic Disney adaptations are based on fairy tales and musicals. With those origins, they can’t escape a sense of artifice, and typically come across like massively expensive, colourful productions that have been transplanted to a Hollywood sound stage from Broadway or the West End.

(L-R) Maia Kealoha as Lilo and Stitch in Disney’s live-action LILO & STITCH. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2025 Disney Enterprises Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The new live-action Lilo & Stitch isn’t based on a fairy tale, though. Barring the inclusion of several Elvis hits, it isn’t a musical either.

And despite what a lot of the marketing material would have you believe, director Dean Fleischer Camp, who made the Oscar-nominated CGI-and-live-action hybrid Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, has the sense not to fixate on copy-pasting his source material frame by frame. Because it just won’t work here. While audiences accept over-the-top action from the original 2002 cartoon, they’ll likely have a hard time swallowing a real-life scene where an alien drives a petrol tanker into a volcano to get the thrust needed to reach an overhead spacecraft. Much like the title character Stitch makes quick work of his shackles, the new film casts off an over-faithful attitude to adaptation, to its benefit.

Of course, there will be viewers disgruntled by the changes to beloved characters and moments – some removed, some reworked. Mostly, though, the tweaks are in the film’s favour, helping to set it up as a more contemporary version of what Lilo & Stitch has always been: a self-contained, grounded and intimate tale of family, both found and biological.

Grand fantasy has no place here, with the CGI reserved for extra-terrestrial characters instead of consistently replacing obvious green screen backdrops.

Lilo & Stitch is still the same story as it was two decades ago, however.

Created as a biological weapon of destruction, Experiment 626 (soon to be known as Stitch) is set for exile. He swiftly escapes the alien authorities and crash lands on Earth, but ends up stuck on a Hawaiian island with his creator Dr. Jumba Jookiba (Zach Galifianakis) and Agent Pleakley (Billy Magnussen) donning human facades to facilitate his recapture, overseen by the United Galactic Federation’s Grand Councilwoman (voiced by Hannah Waddingham). To buy himself time, Stitch masquerades as a dog and worms his way into the home of orphaned sisters, lonely six-year-old Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and college-age Nani Pelekai (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong). The timing couldn’t be worse, as an overwhelmed Nani risks losing custody of Lilo to the state, and Stitch has no control over his instinct for mischief.

It’s impossible to ignore the waft of calculated emotional manipulation in the new Lilo & Stitch. To make sure you “feel” the big plot beats, music swells, while the rawest moments are side-stepped to keep things safe and palatable. Still, there’s enough substance to snack on.

Read more: Quality over quantity: Thunderbolts kicks some serious ass-terisk!

(L-R) Maia Kealoha as Lilo, Stitch and Sydney Agudong as Nani in Disney’s live-action LILO & STITCH. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2025 Disney Enterprises Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The computer-generated Stitch is an expressive delight, radiating the chaos energy that bratty pet owners will acknowledge with a knowing smile. Newcomer Kealoha is cute as Lilo, but it’s Agudong who has the most interesting role, as the film delves with more detail into Nani’s disappointments, fears, sense of failure, and cynicism born out of a grief she hasn’t had a chance to process. As already mentioned, Lilo & Stitch doesn’t have the courage to follow these threads to their ragged end, but at least they’re present, stoked by the presence of Tia Carrere (who voiced Nani in 2002) as a far more convincing social worker than the character of Cobra Bubbles in the original film.

That said, Bubbles is still around, played by Courtney B. Vance, while elderly neighbour Tūtū (Amy Hill) is a welcome addition to the cast, adding further warmth and spirit to proceedings, and giving the Pelekai girls a broader support team.

“Warm” and “spirited” are good ways to describe the live-action Lilo & Stitch… along with “cute and fluffy” if you want to quote Stitch himself.

It won’t rank among the best films of 2025, but it’s definitely one of the better Disney remakes, thanks to its simultaneous loosened grip on its source material and understanding of the original’s tight familial focus, which is more relatable than most. DM

Lilo & Stitch is in cinemas from 23 May.

This article was first published on PFangirl.