Lilo & Stitch (2025)

Going into a live-action Disney remake, you brace yourself. You've been here before. The soulless cash-in, the CGI that makes everything look like a cutscene, the original's heart quietly removed and replaced with spectacle and noise. So when I tell you that this 2025 version of Lilo & Stitch actually isn't half bad, I want you to understand the full weight of that. For a Disney live-action remake, "isn't half bad" is practically a standing ovation.

It won't surpass the original. Nothing will, and this film is wise enough not to pretend otherwise. The 2002 animated film had something genuinely peculiar about it: a raw, melancholy texture that felt out of step with the usual Disney playbook, dealing with grief and poverty and the fragility of a small family clinging together on a Hawaiian island. That version had hand-drawn expressiveness and a willingness to sit with difficult feelings. This one softens some of those edges. But it doesn't abandon them entirely, and that's what surprised me.

The core of the story remains intact. A little girl from Kauai and a chaotic alien experiment, two misfits finding their way to each other and, in doing so, figuring out what family actually means. The Hawaiian setting is captured beautifully here: lush greens, golden beaches, and a genuine effort to incorporate local culture and language rather than using the islands purely as a pretty backdrop. That care is visible throughout, and it matters.

Maia Kealoha as Lilo is a real standout. She's natural and feisty, and in the quieter moments she's genuinely moving. The bond she builds with Stitch is the whole reason you're watching, and it does land, even if Stitch himself is a bit of a mixed bag in this form. He's too glossy sometimes, a little too polished in the way that a lot of CG creatures are these days, like something slightly squeaky-clean has been buffed over him. But his physical comedy and his sheer chaotic energy survive the translation well enough that you root for him anyway.

Where the film stumbles is in its third act, which leans too hard into generic action beats when the original trusted its quieter emotional logic to carry the finish line. The sharper elements of the source material, the critique of bureaucracy, the rawness of grief around the girls' parents, are noticeably softened. You feel their absence like a slightly deflated tyre: still functional, but not quite the same ride.

There are genuine additions that work, though. A scene between Nani and social services feels more grounded than I expected, more human, and the score weaves in Hawaiian music in ways that feel organic rather than decorative. These are the moments that signal a production that actually cared about what it was making. I'm reminded a little of Wonder (2017), another family film that could have coasted on its feel-good premise but instead found real emotional sincerity in the smaller, quieter scenes. This one has flashes of that same quality.

It's not essential viewing. If you love the original, it remains the one to watch. But as a companion piece, as a respectful attempt to translate something genuinely odd and melancholy into a new format for a new audience, this earns its existence. It's not a triumph, and it's not a disaster. It's a solid, heartfelt effort from a studio that doesn't always bother with either of those things.

Three stars. Pretty good, tbh, and in this particular sub-genre of cinema, that really does count for something.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2025  | Watched: 2025-08-09

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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