Lilo & Stitch (2002)

Lilo & Stitch (2002)

After the disappointing performance of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Disney bounced back with what was to be their only big success for years to come: Lilo & Stitch. One of the few Disney films to be set in the modern day, Lilo & Stitch combines extravagant, sci-fi action with a heartfelt, emotional story about family and purpose. It does tread some old ground, but for the first time in a few years and the last time for quite a few more, Disney managed to connect with audiences on an emotional level in the way only they can do.

The art style returns to Disney’s more traditional, rounded, smoother character designs, though the human characters of this movie do have a distinct look and the aliens all look very different and unique. The animation is, unsurprisingly, excellent; the character animation is excellent, sometimes kinetic and humorous, sometimes careful and used to express quiet emotion, the action scenes are excellent, the computer animation is excellent, it’s all excellent. The backgrounds are of particular note, returning to a watercolour look that Disney has not used for quite some time; the colours and painting are so soft, yet rich, the backgrounds almost seem to exist in a world of their own, independent of the characters. This style reminds me of Studio Ghibli movies, especially the later, 2009 film Ponyo, which shares a similar setting; in both these films, the backgrounds are a true work of art.

At first the story can seem rather tired, being about an alien who finds himself stranded on Earth and has to insert himself into the lives of a little girl and her sister, only to have them teach him the true meaning of family and what it means to belong. We have seen this story of the outsider who wants to find where they belong many times throughout the Disney Renaissance, but rarely is it done as well as it is here; like Beauty and the Beast,Lilo & Stitch focuses not on pushing its moral, but rather on developing its characters, allowing the audience to infer the message and themes of the film from the struggles they go through. Again, like Beauty and the Beast, the film shows us two characters that are viewed as outcasts, simply because they are different, who cannot reconcile their feelings about themselves with the role that society has decided they should play – Lilo as the weirdo and Stitch as the monster; initially, they seem to give into the roles they have been given, but slowly come to realise that they are not a good fit. Unlike something like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the movie is not about proving this to others, but simply to themselves, they want to feel like they belong to a family, something which Stitch has never had and which Lilo has had tragically taken from her. Though the film addresses some familiar themes, it does it so expertly and with such a unique cast of characters that it probably does a better job than any of the previous Disney movies that tackle this idea, except Beauty and the Beast. 

The film’s Hawaiian setting is also of note, as not only does it make sense within the context of the story – Stitch lands on an island with no major cities and cannot swim, so he is trapped in a place where he physically cannot fulfil his destructive purpose – but also allows for some beautiful scenery, interesting uses of character and culture and great music, all of which are completely new to the Disney animated canon. The film is also well paced and well structured, with a solid character arc which remains entertaining and consistent throughout; everything that happens makes sense and each scene follows on logically from the one before. The movie is also very funny! There is a great sense of comic timing here, the animators know just how long a character should hold a stare, or pause before reacting, leading to a lot of sudden jokes which hit hard and fast, catching you off guard. There are also a lot of good character-based jokes, as all the major characters have very specific personalities which afford for humorous dialogue and equally humorous interactions with the other characters. Though it’s not as overtly comical as The Emperor’s New Groove, Lilo & Stitch is, in many ways, just as funny and as a film which is not purely a comedy, it perfectly balances the moments of brevity with the more serious, emotional scenes; from a purely structural standpoint, Lilo & Stitch is pretty much perfect.

The characters are a colourful and naturally likeable bunch; there are very few stereotypes here and the ones that at first seem to be old clichés are actually used in a way that we’re not used to seeing in Disney movies. Like Beauty and the Beast, the two title characters of Lilo & Stitch share the role of protagonist, as the movies devotes equal time to the both of them, as well as their growing friendship. Lilo is, without question, the best child character Disney has ever done; kids in Disney movies tend to either be overly cutesy and annoying, or just bland and... well, still annoying. Instead of a stereotype of a kid, Lilo actually behaves like a real kid – she can be a brat and pushes her sister in terms of what she can get away with, but it doesn't mean she’s a bad kid, she’s just acting out for attention; she’s cute, but without being too saccharine, her behaviour and mannerisms are just naturally sweet; she’s curious and insightful for her age, but is still naive and inexperienced. Most notable is how she’s a weird kid that doesn’t fit in with her peers, but not in a generic “outcast in a Disney movie” way; we are expected to accept that characters like Hercules and Pocahontas don’t fit in, for very superficial and undeveloped reasons, but Lilo’s mannerisms are so realistic and skilfully conveyed that we immediately and completely understand why she’s an outcast. Everyone knew a kid like this growing up (and if they didn’t, it’s probably because they were this kid), she’s always just a little off from everyone else – she can’t afford the same dolls that all the other girls play with, so she makes her own, but it just doesn’t look right; she starts fights with little provocation, but then tries to be friends with the very same person she just attacked, seemingly unaware of the fact that these people don’t consider her their friend; she is not a freak or a bad person, she is just a very confused little girl. There is a scene where Lilo tells Stitch that she knows that the reason he wrecks things and pushes people away is because he is lonely; she may as well be talking about herself, her character is a heartbreakingly truthful deconstruction of the idea of the “weird kid”. Lilo has a lot of personality, her weird ideas and off-kilter wit are charming and her awkward reactions and sense of timing are legitimately very funny. Daveigh Chase does a fantastic job in bringing this character to life, especially considering how young she was at the time; consequently, Lilo sounds just like a real little girl and it’s impossible not to grow to care about her. 

Stitch is also very likeable, he’s just a ball of crazy energy that’s always doing weird stuff and often in very strange and inventive ways, such as moving around by sticking his legs into his mouth and rolling around like a ball. He’s such a little monster and he’s always causing trouble, but that’s why he’s so much fun to watch; even when he becomes a “good guy”, as it were, he still mocks and taunts his enemies and seems to derive an almost sadistic glee from humiliating and hurting them. He also shares a sense of awkwardness with Lilo, as well as the obvious fact that he doesn’t fit in on Earth because he’s an alien; they are both weird, misunderstood and undervalued, but do have things they are good at, even if they are a little unusual or unexpected – from Lilo’s sense of imagination and creativity, to Stitch’s skill with a guitar – and deep down they just want to be loved. Stitch also spends about half of the movie in a state of legitimate depression and existential crisis, questioning his purpose and place in the world and whether or not he should be alive at all; this is conveyed very seriously, delicately and mostly without even any dialogue, with a level of depth and honesty rarely seen in films intended for children. It never gets too heavy or melancholy, but you really feel for Stitch as you can see just how much pain and confusion he’s in; for a character who is so wild and crazy and who barely has any dialogue, Stitch is very well-rounded and both sides of his personality are equally interesting – when he’s a monster, he’s a REAL monster and a ton of fun, but when he’s more tender, he’s genuinely endearing and sympathetic and like Lilo, you really feel for him.

The side characters are also well constructed; Nani is another character that could have easily been poorly handled, but is instead presented so sincerely that she avoids becoming the very obvious and easy cliché she could have been. She can be a bit of a kill-joy and is bossy towards Lilo and Stitch, but only because she has to be; she is frustrated that Lilo seems incapable of understanding just how close her behaviour has brought them to being separated, but at the same time, she understands that it’s unfair to expect Lilo to understand – after all, she’s only a kid and she shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of stuff, yet. But of course, Nani is barely more than a kid herself and it’s implied that she’s had to skip at least part of her childhood to raise Lilo, after they lost their parents, which isn’t fair on her, either; her struggle is believable and incredibly sympathetic, as all she wants is to do what’s right for her sister, but the world just keeps putting obstacles in her way. Like Lilo and Stitch, she finds it difficult to play the role that the world has forced on her, that of a mother: as Lilo says, ‘I like you better as a sister than as a mom’; she isn’t ready for that kind of responsibility yet, but because of what happened, she has no choice. Her interactions with Lilo are also refreshingly realistic, from their sisterly quarrels to their moments of playfulness and understanding, with little quirks and reactions that we can imagine built up over the course of their lives; there is a great scene where Lilo runs away from Nani, who instantly knows that she is hiding in the tumble dryer and very carefully lays out a trap for her sister, tricking her into catching herself. Small things like this go such a long way in developing genuine relationships and back stories, I cannot stress this enough; it is such a short scene, but it tells us so much about these characters, how well they know each other and what their lives have been like before we met them. The character of the bossy older sister is so rarely done well in kid’s movies and Nani is one of the very few that is done so perfectly.

Jumba and Pleakley are the biggest source of comic relief and are, in some ways, a pretty traditional villainous double-act, though they too break tradition by not really being bad people and eventually becoming friends with the heroes. They play off each other well and at times function almost like an old married couple, with the more masculine, impulsive and reckless Jumba constantly being nagged by the more feminine, anxious and rational Pleakley, especially evidenced by the fact that Jumba disguises himself as a man and Pleakley as a woman. They both have good voice actors behind them, especially Pleakley, who is voiced by Kids in the Hall member Kevin McDonald, who brings a sense of fervent panic and laughable incompetence to the character. Cobra Bubbles is cool and intimidating and his serious and unflappable demeanour makes for a lot of good gags, particularly the fact that his ridiculous name is so at odds with his tough exterior that he is visibly embarrassed saying it. Despite essentially being an antagonistic force towards Nani and Lilo, as he threatens to split them apart, he is not a bad guy; again, in most kid’s movies, this guy would be a stuck-up, stuffy bureaucrat who seems obsessed with splitting up the sisters just to be mean. However, Bubbles is a reasonable and good-intentioned authority figure who is clearly upset by the idea of taking Lilo away, as he knows Nani cares about her sister, he just has legitimate concerns about her ability to take care of her; neither Bubbles nor Nani are in the wrong and neither of them are the bad guy, they’re just two good people in a bad situation trying to do what they think is right and they both have very valid points. Similarly, the Grand Councilwoman is an antagonistic force towards Stitch, but only because she is trying to protect the galaxy; like Bubbles, she is only trying to do what she thinks is right and when she is eventually convinced that Stitch has good in him and deserves to live, she allows him to do so.

Gantu is the closest the film has to a legitimate villain, but even he is not really evil, like Bubbles and the Grand Councilwoman he is just trying to do his job, though he does seem to take a little too much joy in capturing Lilo and Stitch. Unfortunately, though it is mostly interesting to have a Disney movie where the heroes are faced by antagonistic forces who are not especially villainous, in the case of Gantu, it does kind of work more to the film’s detriment than its credit, as though Stitch’s rescue of Lilo is exciting, Gantu’s lack of development as a real villain means that his defeat doesn’t really feel all that satisfying or conclusive; still, this is one of, if not the only real time that the film stumbles, so it’s very easy to forgive. The film doesn’t really need a specific villain, as one of its messages seems to be that there is no such thing as good or bad people, just good and bad situations and when people find themselves in the latter, they just have to make the most of things and do the best they can, which will sometimes bring them into conflict with others. As said before, none of the characters who oppose Lilo and Stitch are especially bad people, they’re just doing what they think is right and ultimately, are persuaded otherwise, when the titular duo prove to them that, despite what appearances might suggest, they are a part of a happy and functional family that doesn’t need outside interference. 

Lilo & Stitch is once again not a traditional musical, but instead features a number of songs which play over the action, some original and some pre-existing. Unlike Tarzan, for example, the songs do not exist to describe the action, but instead exist purely to evoke emotion and create atmosphere; thankfully, this means there are no goofy lyrics or redundant, simplistic narration, they’re just nice songs. The use of Hawaiian music, as well as the songs of Elvis Presley, compliment the film’s setting and style appropriately and work well for a number of montages, as well as an especially powerful section of the film where Lilo, Stitch, Nani and their friend David go surfing, a sequence which runs a gambit of emotions, from apprehension, to childlike wonder, to pained loneliness, to ecstatic joy; truly one of the movie’s best moments, which could not exist without the great song “Hawaiian Rollercoaster Ride” behind it. The score is by veteran composer Alan Silvestri and at times sounds suspiciously similar to his score from Back to the Future, but of course, this is in no way a bad thing; Silvestri is a master of his art and his music fosters empathy, hope and exhilaration as well here as in anything he’s ever done.

Lilo & Stitch is a movie at the top of its game; it knows exactly what it’s doing and practically never drops the ball. The sci-fi stuff is cool and exciting, but it knows when to give way to the more emotional stuff and the emotional stuff never gets melancholic or serious enough to bring down the fun; it’s a perfect split between adventure and heart. The story is a thoughtful and admirably realistic take on some themes Disney has explored many times before, many of which it does better than any of its predecessors. With fun characters, cool music and awesome animation, Lilo & Stitch is a movie that fires on all cylinders; it’s an absolute delight.

9/10