Movie Review: Lilo & Stitch

Although it has been just two months since Disney’s Snow White was released, the Mouse House has unleashed yet another live-action adaptation of a beloved animated film. This time around, 2002’s Lilo & Stitch is given the “real” treatment and the result is an honest-to-goodness Disney classic in its own right.

Following the same path as its animated counterpart, the 2025 incarnation of Lilo & Stitch gets underway when a young parentless girl adopts a “dog” from a local animal shelter in Hawaii, only to discover later that the creature is a purportedly dangerous experiment that has taken refuge on Earth and is being hunted by its creator and the galactic body that sees it as a menace to life in general. Once the creature (voiced by Christopher Sanders) meets Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and utilizes his innate charms to convince her that he would make a good pet “dog,” they must convince Lilo’s sister, Nani (Sydney Agudong), that Lilo will take care of her new pet and make sure to help Nani out around the house so that they are not investigated by child protective services.

Of course, the two sisters do not see their situation in the same way at all and each has their own interpretation of how life on the island should be and which role each should be playing. The absence of the sisters’ parents has necessitated Nani putting her marine biology career on hold to care for her sister. Now, as she currently struggles to make ends meet for the two of them, Lilo grows more rebellious and antagonistic towards her sister. Enter the mischievous alien – whom Lilo christens Stitch – and all hell breaks loose and he and Lilo wreak havoc across the island.

Shortly after Lilo and Stitch meet, the two aliens sent to collect Stitch – the Earth-expert Pleakley (Billy Magnussen) and Jumba (Zach Galifianakis) the somewhat immoral scientist who created Stitch – arrive and go begin hunting their quarry (although Jumba seems to have slightly less altruistic motives than does Pleakley).

Despite the fact that the script by Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes – that takes its inspiration from the original film penned and directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders – is constructed using a familiar pattern, the work of director Dean Fleischer-Camp to highlight the characters in the film and their emotional connection between one another is the crux of the film’s success. There is an honesty in the way the familial relationship is portrayed in Lilo & Stitch and a real bond seems to be formed between the two titular characters as well as between them and Lilo’s sister as they form their own unconventional family unit.

Maia Kealoha (from left) 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.

That unit is anchored by the mesmerizing performance of Kealoha as Lilo. She is both likable and can be, at times, seen as rather frustrating from her sister’s point of view. It is remarkable how she manages to imbue scenes with actual emotional depth alongside an artificial Stitch. Add to that the humanity that is afforded the CGI Stitch as well as the depth of Agudong’s portrayal of Nani and the result is a well-rounded central cast that is up to the task of delivering the narrative heft needed to make the whole endeavor succeed.

While some may hesitate to embrace yet another live-action reimagining of an animated classic, in the case of Lilo & Stitch, the results are resoundingly positive and perhaps even an improvement on the original given the likability and presence of the actors involved.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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