Movie Thoughts: Lilo & Stitch (2025)

 

• Released: May 21st, 2025
• Directed by: Dean Fleischer Camp
• Running time: 1h 48min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

A dangerous space creature crash lands on Hawaii and befriends a little girl with a troubled home life.

My Thoughts

Okay, full disclosure before we go into this movie: I don't really have a connection to the original Lilo & Stitch movie at all like some people do. I know a lot of people consider the OG movie to be one of Disney's best and have re-watched it a ton of times, but I'm not one of those people. I watched it once or twice at most in my life and, while I like the OG movie fine, I don't hold a real special fondness for it or anything. It's just a cute family film to me and that's it. I just don't consider it to be all that special or great. Not a bad movie either, just solid. And I don't remember all that much of it from my two watches a few years ago.

And this remake...yeah, okay, I do think it's worse than the animated version, don't get me wrong, but honestly I still lowkey enjoyed it. It's not great or even all that good, but it's okay. A perfectly fun family film to watch once.

I will get the elephant out of the room first: The main thing I dislike about this movie is the ending, where Lilo goes into the foster system. I don't think that works at all and is antithetical to the "Ohana" message of the first movie. Splitting up Lilo and Nani was a bad call if you ask me and I can see why this decision led to controversy, I agree.

But the rest of the movie is just. A perfectly fine family film. Nothing astounding but just fun and charming. I liked the characters, I liked the deliveries (the girl they go to play Lilo especially does a good job considering her age and the material she's given), the humor is okay. It makes some changes to the plot but aside from splitting up the sisters I don't mind most of the other changes. Jumba is a villain now, but honestly because I have no attachment to the character from the original I don't mind this change. Gantu is gone but again, I don't care about the character from the first movie so not a big loss for me.

The CGI in this movie also looked pretty okay. Well, at least on Stitch and the Councilwoman. Jumba and Pleakley look a little worse, but they're still not as bad as the CGI has been in some of these live-action remakes (e.g. Aladdin 2019 or Snow-White 2025). Stitch especially looks pretty good, though I'm not sure why he has a pug-like face now. But his CGI is pretty good.

The main reason I liked this movie is the characters and the charm though. I liked Lilo and Nani a lot, I liked this version of Pleakley, I liked the elderly neighbor, and I liked David (though he should've been in the movie more). And these characters just give the movie a charm and a heart that other remakes sometimes don't have. Sans the ending, like I said before.

So yeah, is this a great remake? No. Is the original better? Definitely. Is the controversy regarding this movie warranted? Regarding some aspects like the ending, yes. But other changes I don't mind as much. Overall I just consider this movie to be pretty middle-of-the-road okay and fun. If I had to choose between this and the How to Train Your Dragon remake, which I both saw on the same weekend, I'd probably choose this because at least it had a little more charm and heart to it and didn't feel as flat. But that said, I can also see why people, especially fans of the original, dislike this one.