"Stitch" brings the mouse back to life!

Rating: Null/10 (3 July 2002)

Disney brings back watercolor backgrounds, not since 1941's Dumbo, in this stunningly-awesome looking animated movie. Even with that to boot, Dean Deblois and Chris Sanders managed to come up with a respectable plot that wasn't a complete rip off of E.T. (1982) or even, well, Mac and Me (1988). It's funny to see that the average person who doesn't enjoy any type of Disney production has been favoring this movie more than others, as I feel, it's a pretty nice step for the company. Disney goes flat-out to create a funny character put into a situation where only large laughs are going to occur. The Emperor's New Groove (2000) tried so hard to accomplish that, but fell just short of a home run. `Stitch' gets that extra foot or two.
After being created by a mad scientist named Jumba (David Ogden Stiers), Stitch (Chris Sanders) is immediately set aside as a misfit and ordered to spend his life on a remote asteroid. After finding his way to a spacecraft, Stitch outruns the galactic police and crash lands in Hawaii, where is wounded and treated in an animal shelter as a dog. The following day, Lilo (Daveigh Chase), a lonely and misunderstood young girl, arrives at the shelter to adopt a dog after her sister Nani (Tia Carrere) allows her to.
Along with the frustrating social worker Mr. Bubbles (Ving Rhames), Stitch proves to be too much for the sisterly duo. Their own relationship, scarred by the death of their parents, starts to fall apart. Lilo feels that Stitch is the only one who understands her, her sister just doesn't respect her anymore, and her peers don't seem to be accepting her at all. Two relationships in this movie are key, with Lilo & Stitch and Lilo & Nani. Acting as the stronger point, Lilo helps transform Stitch and Nani into different people with different priorities, the main one being family.
`Ohana,' which means `family,' seems to be one of the largest elements in this film. Being referenced numerous times by Lilo throughout the film, it eventually starts to grow onto Nani and Stitch, until they use it themselves by the end of the film to  well, you'll have to see it for yourselves. Reading some user comments on the film, it seems that most Hawaiians are glad that the message of `ohana' is being used, and the meaning is becoming known a little better. It's almost like if people in Japan made a movie and had the main character say `Yeah baby, yeah!' dozens upon dozens of times. It represents our great culture, so it feels good to let others know about it.
The comic character is there, the sappy child-left-behind character is there, the setting is there. Everything seems to be `there' for this really un-sappy (besides a few short moments) cartoon. Oh, and did I mention that this one is awesome enough to contain no please-cry-because-I'm-lonely songs sung by the characters? Just some good ole' fashioned Elvis playing. Even without the tunes, this movie would still be rock n' rollin'.
***1/2 out of ****