Today I will be talking about Lilo & Stitch based on the novel "Push" by Saphire. This could be the darkest setup ever for a Disney movie. "Hey, what if we make a movie about a little orphan girl in Hawaii who is clinically depressed, has ADHD and is constantly getting in fights with her older sister, who is trying to raise her. Oh, then her sister can get in trouble with social services, and they we'll have the little girl make friends with a disneyfied xenomorph, and they'll cause so much mayhem, her sister will lose her job and their house can blow up! The kids'll love it!"
Given the basic premise, it's amazing that this movie works so well. Mixing Sci-Fi with a high stakes domestic drama should be a disaster, but somehow, it works. The movie uses a strange sense of humor that blends everything together. When Lilo is attempting to punish her friends with voodoo dolls, it somehow makes sense that her best friend should be a genetically engineered creature of distruction.
The story of Lilo and her sister Nani is a very honest look at a broken family that has been through unimaginable tradgedy. You get to see two people trying to find a way to make things work while feeling crushed by the reality of their situation. It is in these moments of honesty that we get some of the best scenes in the movie.
As a total contrast, we get to see goofy alien creatures attempt to recapture the escaped Stitch. The fish our of water alien duo add a nice dash of silliness and also causes Stitch to stay with Lilo to evade capture. It works more often than not, but it is the weakest part of the film. In fact, apart from Stitch, most of the Alien characters are very generic and boring, thankfully we only see them in the prologue and at the end of the movie. One other charcter that needs to be recognized is Ving Rhames as the social worker, Cobra Bubbles. Ridiculous name aside, he doe a great job of not letting the social worker be a villain. He is actually looking out for the best interests of Lilo and Nani, and given the events of the movie, you can't really blame him for his actions.
The core of the movie revolves around the idea of 'Ohana. As we are told throughout the movie, 'Ohana, means family; and that no one gets left behind or forgotten. It is really a beautiful sentiment that the movie drives home. The central message is that families aren't always happy or perfect, but they should always stick together. As Stitch points out at the end of the movie, "This is my family. I Found it. It's little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good." It's a great message for Disney to send out, and one that is repeated over and over again in their films. It's what makes people love these movies so much. They always try to tell you that outsiders are valuable and as deserving of love as anyone else, and that a family can take many shapes. They maybe little and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good
8.5/10
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