Lilo & Stitch Live-Action Remake!!!
Lilo & Stitch (Live-Action): Now With 100% More Tentacles and Existential Dread
Title: Lilo & Stitch
Distributor: Disney
Release date: May 23, 2025
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Cast: Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders, Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Billy Magnussen, Zach Galifianakis, Courtney B. Vance, Hannah Waddingham, Kaipo Dudoit, Tia Carrere
Rating: PG
Running time: 1 hr 47 mins
Lilo & Stitch Live-Action Remake
Disney’s latest entry in the “Hey, remember this?” cinematic universe is Lilo & Stitch, a live-action remake of the 2002 animated cult classic featuring an alien who looks like a blue gremlin, acts like a blender on Red Bull, and might secretly be your spirit animal. Why remake it? Unclear. But hey, someone in a suit said “Ohana means merchandising,” and here we are.
Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp (aka the guy who gave us Marcel the Shell and clearly has a thing for emotionally complex, non-human protagonists), this version stays pretty true to the original: Experiment 626—designed for planetary destruction, because why not—is sentenced to space jail by the alien equivalent of HR, escapes, and crash-lands in Kaua’i. There, he’s adopted by Lilo, a lonely kid who thinks Stitch is a very ugly dog. Which, to be fair, is the same mistake many of us made about Pomeranians.
Lilo’s sister Nani is holding things together with duct tape, dreams deferred, and pure big-sister willpower. She’s trying to avoid losing custody while fending off Cobra Bubbles, a CIA agent with the name of a 1980s wrestler and the patience of a saint. Meanwhile, two aliens—one with the voice of Zach Galifianakis and the other with the energy of a sleep-deprived birdwatcher—are on the hunt to retrieve Stitch before he turns the island into a crater.
The movie’s big challenge? Translating the anarchic, Looney Tunes vibe of the original into live action. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it feels like watching a raccoon try to do taxes—chaotic, a little sad, but weirdly compelling. The humor isn’t always firing on all thrusters, and Stitch seems a little too polished, like he just came from a CGI spa.
But despite some pacing issues and a few jokes that land like a UFO full of dad jokes, the movie has heart. Real heart. It reminds us that family doesn’t have to look a certain way—or even come from the same planet—as long as there’s love, forgiveness, and the occasional laser fight in the living room.
So is it perfect? Nope. But it’s a warm, weird, alien-filled hug of a movie. Just watch your furniture.
