Blue Punchbuggy! - Disney Creates Its Best Movie In Years! - Lilo And Stitch!

When people think of Disney, they usually think of the good old days when every year the new Disney Animated Motion Picture was cherished and it became an almost natural event. In my household, ever since Beauty and the Beast was released, we made it our American duty to go out to see the new Disney flick, usually being released in mid summer or late November. Disney had a world renowned string of hits with kids and parents alike. The Little Mermaid introduced us to Ariel, a mermaid who wished to be a land walkin' human. Then if memory serves me right, Beauty and the Beast rang true with audiences all over the country with the tag line that stated the film had the best romance of all time. After B&B came my personal favorite, Aladdin with the always excellent Robin Williams voicing the Genie. The Lion King broke box office records opening with a little over 50 million in its first weekend.

After that, Disney fell into a slump.

It's true, in my mind anyway. The infallible Disney corp. seemed to of lost all its steam and was headed down. Computer Generated films like Toy Story and A Bug's Life provided a lifeboat for some of the company's losses but nothing concrete came along. Hercules was a modest but meager success and soon after Disney fell even deeper into debt after problems when Atlantis: The Lost Empire posted lackluster receipts. Disney needed a new movie to bring in the people and still retain their rep as the best animation studios in the business as Dreamworks SKG was soon producing some of the biggest films of the year like Shrek

In 2002, Disney's golden goose would lay itself a golden egg and that egg is Lilo and Stitch. Conceived almost entirely in the head of Chris Sanders, the movie's director, Lilo And Stitch revives the old Disney style with new crisp 2-D animation and slapstick jokes that kids and parents will interpret differently. The story is simple enough. Experiment 626, later to be named and referred to as Stitch escapes an alien compound and crash lands on Earth after taking a trip through hyperspace. After landing and a rather obscure accident with a few cleaning vehicles, he is sent to a Dog's Homeless shelter and that's when we meet Lilo. Lilo is not your ordinary 6 year old. She's got a knack for being extremely odd and misplaced amongst her so called "friends." Her mom and dad were killed a few years ago and now she's living with her sister and has grown accustomed to the social worker checking up on her every so often.

Her sister, hoping to fill in the emptiness of a broken family, decides to let Lilo have a dog so they go to the shelter and guess who gets picked? You guessed it right, its experiment 626, now named Stitch by Lilo. As fate would have it, two other aliens were dispatched to Earth to retrieve Stitch and bring him back home so here Stitch sees his chance and uses Lilo and her sister as cover. Eventually Stitch becomes attached to Lilo. So the conflicts still stand: Will Lilo ever have a happy full family? Will Stitch be taken away by the intergalactic aliens? Well, you'll have to watch it and find out.


Lilo and Stitch is easily Disney's best feature since The Lion King but you can't really compare them because their subject is so drastically different it really wouldn't be fair. To put it bluntly, Lilo and Stitch is freakin' hilarious. This can easily be referenced to say that it's just because Lilo and Stitch is so much different than Disney's usual fare and truthfully I think that is a key reason.

For one, Disney starts the movie off like a genuine acid trip. Aliens, hyperspace, and an unbelievable amount of implied violence. All these extreme contrasts from Disney's earlier efforts aside, the laughs never stop. Second, the movie has some pretty unusual setups for a kid's film. The plot revolves around a broken family, something hardly depicted in ANY Disney movie. That's kind of a big risk when you're thinking about bringing little kids to a movie, especially when they may be only 2 years old. Another turn off for viewers might have been the absence of music. Sure, Disney is getting further and further away from their original musical era but usually every Disney movie has at least ONE memorable song in it, save Atlantis: The Lost Empire and the latest Monsters Inc.. Lilo and Stitch doesn't really have a tagline song or a hook to play during commercials. Not a bad thing, but I can't help but think Disney may be running out of ideas.

While Disney may be tip-toeing away from their older features, Lilo and Stitch definitely has some good things going for it. Stitch is the perfect solution to a movie that is as off-beat as this one is. Stitch is every little kid's dream of an alien. Small, cute, furry, 4 arms, 2 antennae, big poofy dog ears and a little baby talk kind of voice. Naturally, in every scene he's in your eyes are glued to him and you're laughing at his every whim. Not since Aladdin's Genie has there been such an energetic and bouncy character that kids will love. Another pro the movie has going for itself is its simplistic yet beautifully written script. Disney is finally catching on that you need to have jokes and puns in the movie that kids and adults can interpret in their own ways. That's one of the key reasons Shrek did so well.

The script does it have it's moments in big ways though, even now I'm chuckling at some of them. "its o.k., my dog found the chainsaw" and "Hey, I prefer EVIL GENIUS!! BWA HA HA!" still play over in my head. All the puns and jokes are balanced out by The Ugly Duckling Syndrome that Stitch attains during the course of the movie, wanting to find his family but it lost. There's a scene where Stitch is reading The Ugly Duckling and looks up, all alone in the forest of Hawaii and squeaks out the feeble words "I'm lost...I'm lost" and instantly everyone around me started to tear up. It was almost beautiful in a way, it was sad even for me. If I was a kid in that theatre, I'd cry myself a river right then and there.

With the script comes the much adored animation that Disney is known for. Though it doesn't seem to be up to snuff with its usual standards, it still dazzles and is a small miracle to be seen. 2-D animation is where it's at. I wish some studios would forget the fancy 3-D stuff and do more manual 2-D labor. The voice talent isn’t even horrible like most animated films are either. You don’t exactly have an all star cast but they get the job done. Tia Carrere from (get this) Wayne’s World is Lilo’s sister and Chris Sanders the director supplies the voice of Stitch. Meanwhile 6 year old Lilo is given life by Daveigh Chase and Kevin McDonald and Ving Raimes make voice appearances as well. Everyone seems to fit their hand drawn persona perfectly.

In the end, Lilo and Stitch is just a flat out awesome animated movie. I dig animated movies, and I really love this one. I hate hearing all the talk about the competition between L&S and Disney's earlier movies but it's unfair to compare them. They're such different movies you can't really try to put them side-by-side and see what's better and worse. Take your kids to see it if you have them. Everyone in the family will enjoy it. I went to see it with 3 girls and a kid brother and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. It only runs about 80 minutes in total so it's not like you're going to get bored with it easily. It's the best Disney film in years and well worth the $6.75. Take your kids, take your girlfriend, take your parents or just whoever. Everyone will love it.

~Aaron