Film: Lilo & Stitch
Cast: Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders, Sydney Agudong, Billy Magnussen, Zach Galifianakis, Hannah Waddingham, Courtney B. Vance, Tia Carrere
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 108 min.

This live-action remake of an animated film that premiered 23 years ago, based on an idea by the inspired co-writer/co director Chris Sanders, is a nostalgia driven mining of its own IP, by Disney. The film deals with a touching story of a lonely Hawaiian girl and the fugitive alien who helps to mend her broken family, but it’s not as funny as expected.

Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, this Lilo & Stitch is faithful enough to the original. But there a few changes tweaked in too. The relationship between the 6-year-old Hawaiian orphan Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and her older sister, Nani (Sydney Elizabeth Agudong), who’s struggling to maintain her guardianship amid financial difficulties and Lilo’s rebellious behavior, has a lot more emotional depth. The plot and a lot of the dialogue from the original is stretched thin here.