Great animation, cute story, too much violence for my tastes.

Rating: Null/10 (19 April 2003)

Our granddaughter is visiting this week so one of the DVD rentals was "Lilo and Stitch." My first question, why didn't they spell her name 'Leeloh'? That would have been easier to pronounce correctly. While I enjoyed this animated movie, I enjoyed the extras even more. The DVD picture is absolutely first-rate, and on a HD TV looks virtually film-like. Also the 5.1 surround sound is used well. The extras include such things as the animation technique used, and the design which used all "rounded" characters and objects to add to its friendly appeal. While I enjoyed this movie, compared to other recent animated films (SHREK, MONSTERS INC, DISNEY'S TARZAN, ICE AGE) it would be closer to the bottom of the list.

The rest of this review contains SPOILERS, so please do not read if you have not seen Leeloh and Stitch yet.
The premise is an illegally "created" little monster on a distant planet, who is sent into exile towards a desert astroid, but the smart little thing figures out how to escape and end up on a Hawiian island. He is built to be impervious to heat, cold, explosions, essentially "unbreakable". But when he gets caught under a big rig and knocked out, he is mistaken for a strange-looking dog, and ends up in the pound where Leeloh and her big sister (parents are dead) adopt him and take him home. Programmed to destroy everything he is quite a handful, and eventually is responsible for destroying their beautiful house. But Leeloh's loving care, and her repeated reference to "family" eventually gets Stitch to transform.

Near the end the aliens show up to nab Stitch (project 626) and return him to proper exile, but being a "by the rules" people defer to Leeloh's adoption papers from the pound and leave Stitch with her. The house is re-built, everyone seems happy, the ending sets up a sequel which is now in the works.
Here's why I did not like it as much as some. To me "animation" is a fun medium and an animated film should be mostly fun. Disney's Tarzan for example, while there is an early scene where a Leopard has killed the parents and is trying to nab the baby Tarzan, it is brief while the rest of the film is fun. In Leeloh and Stitch, the little monster is just too mean, too destructive, that it was hard for me to have any empathy for him. Secondarily, while I in general like the animation style used, all of the Hawiians were drawn with these rounded pig-like noses and very heavy legs which are not attractive at all.
So, yes I realize it just might be ME, but that is my honest reaction. Leeloh and Stitch is a very well done movie, but I just didn't enjoy it as much as most of the other recent animated films.