Look, I had some hope for this one. While I can’t get past calling movies starring CGI lions “live-action,” the thing about Disney’s most perfect modern film, Lilo & Stitch, is that most of its characters are humans. So, you know, it could work, turning this into a movie starring actual humans instead of animated ones.
But such a film lives or dies on Stitch. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but we’re not there yet. The fur isn’t blue enough. The fur doesn’t look like fur. The fur bothers me in every frame of this trailer. The fur looks like Stitch killed and skinned some minor creature from a Sonic the Hedgehog film. Which, to be fair, might be in keeping with Stitch’s antics. But that’s not what happened here. It is known—it has long been known—that fur and hair are really hard to get right in animation. This movie is maybe just … too soon.
Anyway. Lilo & Stitch is the lovable, funny, genuinely impish story of an alien who crash-lands on Earth and winds up being adopted by a little girl, Lilo (Maia Kealoha), who really wants a friend. Stitch—also known as Experiment 626 by the aliens who had previously imprisoned him—is hunted by an agent (Courtney B. Vance) with the perfectly improbable name of Cobra Bubbles. But once Lilo (and her more reluctant older sister) take Stitch in, he learns about ohana, which means family, which means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.
Sorry, just getting a little sniffly thinking about the original film. And to be fair, for brief moments, this trailer almost approaches its level of endearing charm. Brief! Moments!
The new Lilo & Stitch is directed by Dean Fleischer Camp (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On), who clearly means well. It has an excellent cast that includes Chris Sanders (who co-directed the original) returning as the voice of Stitch; Sydney Agudong as elder sister Nani; and Tia Carrere (the original Nani) as Mrs. Kekoa. Billy Magnussen, Zach Galifianakis, and Hannah Waddington are also on board to voice aliens, and Magnussen, playing against type, has one of the best moments in this trailer.
Naturally, said trailer includes an Elvis song. Lilo & Stitch: Slightly Freaky Live Action Version is in theaters May 23rd.
