
This is one of those rare movies (Disney or otherwise) that manages to be sweet without being saccharine, lovely without being kitschy. Probably because, despite the family-friendly message at the core of the movie (ohana means nobody gets left behind), the two main characters are deranged enough to offset any message of universal friendship and love by actually being truly weird and different.
Funnily, at least in the movies, Stitch, the alien bio-weapon from outer space, is the more normal of the two. Lilo is the kind of little girl that enjoys playing Frankenstein, has a collection of photos of ugly tourists (and believes that they are beautiful) and seems to live utterly in a space diverged from normal reality. Sure, behind all that is still a little girl that wants friends and a happy family, but her decidedly weird hands-on approach to solve reality problems (trying to solve Stitch’s violence problems by following the example set by Elvis) feels above all else both genuine character-wise and is really funny.
Stitch on the other hand is just searching for any kind of identity after he has been left in an environment where his inbred tendencies for mass destruction & mayhem (I really love that this is a kids movie by Disney) can’t be brought to bear. Most movies falters when more than one character has a movie-long character arc that is front and center, but Lilo’s and Stitch’s respective journeys perfectly complement each other and lead to a touching finale.








