Wampyrii doesn't live here any more. Play nice y'all. :)
Wampyrii doesn't live here any more. Play nice y'all. :)
Member since:15.09.2000
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Maybe I'm alone in thinking this but for me, the age of the hand-drawn animated movie is dead and computer animation is the way forward. There seemed to be some kind of resurgence in popularity for drawn animation of the kind offered by Lilo & Stitch in the early 90s, Beauty and the Beast was beautifully drawn, possibly the best of all the Disney movies I've seen on that score, but now it looks as though either audiences want more of the kind of computer generated fun offered by the likes of Shrek and Monsters Inc. or simply that studios such as Disney are getting lazy again and simply churning out poorly produced efforts. I haven't seen this year's other Disney animation Spirit, which apparently does look good but is dull as ditch water but having watched Lilo & Stitch I can assure you that backgrounds and animation was certainly of no kind of priority.
What you get in Lilo & Stitch is a kind of rehashed version of E.T., but this time your friendly neighbourhood alien who just wants to go home is replaced by one who is anything but friendly, in fact it was created as a killing machine and having been exiled from its own planet, wants to do anything but go home. We begin the story on the planet Tura, where an idiot scientist (who prefers the 'Evil Genius' tag but doesn't get it) Jumba(David Ogden Stiers) has created a genetic abomination later to be known as Stitch(Chris Sanders) in contravention of intergalactic laws - or
some such mumbo jumbo. He's sentenced to imprisonment whilst Stitch is to be exiled to some barren asteroid - killing is wrong apparently, a lifetime of isolation on a barren space rock is kewl though. Hmm. Anyway, Stitch escapes and crash-lands on Earth, specifically Hawaii where he/she/it is adopted by a little girl Lilo(Daveigh Chase) and her older sister/guardian Nani(Tia Carerra) who believe Stitch to be some kind of strange dog. Nani is struggling to look after Lilo (their parents are dead) and this struggling has attracted the attention of social services dude Mr. Bubbles(Ving Rhames), an enormous man in black who is less than impressed by the family situation, becoming increasinly less impressed after the arrival of the chaos causing Stitch and the alien posse sent to take him back into captivity...
The stage is unfortunately set quite nicely then for some of Disney's usual suffocating brand of sledgehammer morality. Instead of simply entertaining an audience we have to sit through sermons on the importance of family and friendships and tolerance and...and...oh there's lots of sermons. I'm not saying this is a bad thing for kids but when the message seems to over-ride everything else and it begins to feel like a public information broadcast for little peeps then it becomes a little painful for the accompanying big ones.
I could cope with this but Lilo and Stitch also suffers from one of my pet hates: It's a kids movie, no problem, I like some of them but not when there's nothing there for adults - at all. There's no reason why movies aimed primarily at children can not offer something for the accompanying adults as well, Shrek did it, Monsters Inc. did it(and I own both on DVD now), Toy Story too...in fact, most kiddie movies tend to offer *something* these days but there are the odd few which offer little or nothing for the adult viewer and this is one of those times. At best, you can say Lilo & Stitch is 'cute' and inoffensive (as you might expect but having seen the aftermath of 101 Dalmatians and then the cynical 'who gives a fuck how many dogs die as long as Disney gets it's money' release of 102 Dalmatians in full knowledge of the aftermath of the former, I tend not to any more) but otherwise, forget it, nothing to see unless you're a kid. There are none of the little visual jokes in the background, no jokes on two or three levels, little topical nudging and winking or anything else like that, it's solely a movie for kids...so take the matchsticks for your eye lids, you might need them.
Sigh, it's all so 'ho-hum' in my opinion. It doesn't seem as if Disney has put any kind of effort into the production whatsoever. Where is the great, original soundtrack? Sure, we have Elvis who is of course great and kids love him as much as adults(it's the one inter-generationally appealing thing about Lilo & Stitch) but oh I don't know, I expect something more original and creative from a big studio when they actually care about their production. If you were conjuring with a cheap, afterthought, inter-generationally appealing soundtrack you'd probably either choose Elvis or The Beatles wouldn't you? Exactly. Where too is the list of A-Grade voice actors we've come to expect? Ving Rhames and Tia Carerra are certainly nothing special. Well Tia is but not when she's animated. What about the artwork? It's awful, it's lazy and it just adds more weight to the slapdash, churn out a quickie because it'll draw the crowds by the Disney name alone feel of the whole thing. There's nothing here to distinguish this release from the kind of animation seen on childrens TV day in day out. The backdrops are poorly drawn, static and uninspired; the characters are equally poorly detailed, there's little in the way of animated invention to hold your interest and ugh, it's just so 'Saturday morning' in style! When you compare this to the likes of Beauty And The Beast or Disney's more recent computer animated efforts it's just awful and you'd be hard pushed to say it came from the same studio.
I'm going to give it 3 stars anyway(three and a half really but I can't do that here). Kids will and do seem to like it, that's all that matters I suppose even if I do think Disney has been damn lazy and should have offered something to prevent adults checking their watches regularly and longing for the exits. Will you like it? If you generally like Disney movies then yes, probably, it's a tried and tested formula trotted out once again, so no reason why you wouldn't. If you're indifferent to them usually then no, probably not, well you won't hate it, but if you haven't got kids or aren't likely to be talked into going to the flicks to keep someone company who has(my excuse), then there's no reason for you to even consider seeing this. As I said, there's nothing here for adults to see. If you do have children then sure, take them, I'm sure they'll enjoy it as much as all the other children at the flea pit I went to seemed to. It's a very low-rent production from Disney in my view but younger children will enjoy it and like I said, I suppose that's all that matters.
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Well written review, but I completely disagree with your views on the film. I am an adult and think this film offers as much for adults as it does for children. I have actually bought it on DVD I think it is so good.
Greenday 18.11.2002 12:59
I wondered whether this would be a break from the norm but obviously it's not. I'll stick to monsters inc thank you veryt much disney! Cheers, adam.
ickle_geek 07.11.2002 18:25
This and Atlantis (especially the latter) Disney should be ashamed of, what are they doing??? I thought Lilo and Stitch was quite sad in parts, car crash killing her parents and things boohoo, mayeb I am over sensitive
Advantages: Very funny; enjoyable for both children and adults Disadvantages: Backgrounds lack detail; very young children may have trouble following the plot
Advantages: lovely quality of drawn animation, positive messages, realistic body forms and facial feautres Disadvantages: some of the extras could have been left off without harm
Advantages: Great soundtrack from Elvis, Original characters and nice family plot line Disadvantages: Its mad that the characters actually believe Stitch is a dog when he is clearly an alien!!
![Lilo&Stitch [DVD] [2002]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78207113.jpg "Lilo&Stitch [DVD] [2002]")
Nov 2nd, 2002
(Nov 18th, 2002)
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