Disney Finally Grows Up

Rating: 8/10 (23 July 2002)

It was with high hopes that I went to see the newest Disney offering, "Lilo & Stitch." I was not disappointed.
Disney's newest offering (like "Atlantis", a PG-rated movie) is a fantastic mix of superb visuals, an endearing story, and wonderful voice acting. It also jettisons many standard Disney elements, for which I was most grateful.
Stitch is an alien fugitive, a being created by a mad scientist to be a weapon that escaped its confinement. He is discovered by Lilo, a disturbed young orphan in Hawaii who thinks Stitch is an ugly dog. Lilo lives with her older sister Nani, and the hulking social services agent Cobra Bubbles has threatened to take Lilo away from her if she does not prove herself as a parent. Stitch, of course, causes all sorts of havoc in the middle of this.
The animation is fantastic, mainly thanks to the use of watercolor cels, a technique not used for almost 60 years prior (in Disney's "Dumbo"). The characters are drawn with a high degree of realism, especially Nani who has the facial features and build of a true woman of Hawaiian descent and not the nymph-like physique of the standard Disney female. Even the voices are accented correctly, thanks to native Hawaiians Tia Carrere and Jason Scott Lee.
Thankfully, this is not a musical. Sure, there are songs in it...but they're all Elvis Presely songs and there are no singing animals or song breaks. The movie is sweet but not syrupy, endearing but not cloying. Stitch is by far not the cute, sweet, Disney animal but, like Lilo, a lost soul slowly learning to adapt to society and suppress their anger at the world.
I highly recommend this movie to anyone, especially if you're like me, and thought Disney would never regain the wonder and beauty they lost after "Hunchback of Notre Dame."