Lilo & Stitch

In theory, I should be pro-change... except that Lilo & Stitch doesn't really commit to its big alterations.

The simplistic script by Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes finds the quickest way to get sympathy for its characters is by consistently putting them in peril. After a while, the trick feels manipulative.

[Kealoha's] work as Lilo is outstanding, and both she and an almost equally wonderful Agudong share an endearingly authentic chemistry that's out of this world.

Zips by at a pleasantly breakneck pace, never overstaying, lingering just long enough in the emotional moments to draw a tear or two.

Conceived with state-of-the-art CGI, the digital Stitch preserves the creature's moxie thanks to hyper-realistic fur and Sanders' signature voice performance. He's played his own creation for over two decades.

It's the expressive Maia Kealoha, with her ear-piercing shrieks of delight, and Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, excellent as her older sister Nani, who make an argument for this watered-down movie to exist.

It's lost some of the rough edges of the original, which it's what made it interesting, [but] it's not bad.

The two human leads, Nani and Lilo, don't have nearly enough charm to make up for the deficiencies around them, which leaves the entire movie essentially in Stitch's claws. Yet even his demented-toddler-on-three-espressos energy isn't funny.

Live-action recycling makes characters you know and love more "real." And too often, that realism comes with only trace elements of real charm, or magic.

Director Dean Fleischer Camp brings a light touch of the tender-hearted sensibility of his "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On."

The Disney Live-Action Industrial Complex has made a lot of strange decisions... but fundamentally misunderstanding what makes one of their most universally adored characters worthwhile may be its most egregious.

What was great fun before is mostly mopey and depressing now. A hunk, a hunk of burning IP.

A satisfying live-action remake of Disney's animated cult favorite.

This remake doesn't feel like its own movie, but rather a doomed attempt to reengineer a miracle.

Lively, fast-paced and ever so familiar, the picture is a happy addition to the holiday. It's worth leaving the house to see.

Lilo & Stitch is not only incredibly well cast, it also brings the movie into 2025 with some smart changes and thoughtful additions.

The problem is the give-and-take nature of a script that slavishly recreates the original film's greatest hits while breathlessly trying to leapfrog over those same moments to add in original storytelling that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

It's jovial, zany, and sweet, and it recreates its adorable title alien via CGI (and a Sanders voice performance) with pitch-perfect accuracy.

Disney should have left the original alone.

The heart of this story remains firmly intact, but there's something about seeing it rendered in live-action that takes away its inherent magic. It's harder to fall into, much tougher to lose yourself in.