Director(s)
Michael LaBash
Anthony Leondis
Cast
Tia Carrere – Nani (voice)
Holliston Coleman – Aleka
Dakota Fanning – Lilo
Jillian Henry – Elena
Jason Scott Lee – David Kawena (voice)
Kevin McDonald – Agent Pleakley (voice)
Liliana Mumy – Myrtle
Chris Sanders – Stitch (voice)
David Ogden Stiers – Dr. Jumba Jookiba (voice)
Paul Vogt – Gator Gaurd/Various Voices (voice)
The Movie
Let me just say this right off the bat: I’m biased. I want to own Stitch so badly it borders on crazy. Ok, now that that’s out of the way, onto our story.
This is set in the time period between Lilo and Stitch 1 and Stitch: The Movie. Lilo and Stitch are best friends who have tons of fun together. Lilo arrives late to her Hula practice and immediately incurs the wrath of Myrtle, voiced by Liliana Mumy. Myrtle is, well I know this is a children’s movie, but Myrtle is a bitch. She picks on Lilo at every chance she gets and after it is announced that there will be a Hula competition, Myrtle leads the charge in commenting about Lilo not having a mother around. Throughout this whole ordeal, Stitch is perfectly cute.
Nani, voiced by Tia Carrere, is having her own problems trying to run the house and have a relationship. She seems to be losing her mind and finally explodes when she tries to have family fun night and nobody wants to partake in the festivities.
During this period we see the beginning of Stitch’s glitch. See, Stitich was Dr. Jumba’s failed experiment, 626. He was supposed to be a killing machine but wound up being a cute little cuddly thing instead. Somehow, Stitch has period where he short circuits and turns into that violent machine. This causes problems for everyone, because as Stitch’s good level goes down, more bad things happen. It affects Lilo the most, because she is losing her friend and her Hula partner.
Dr. Jumba figures out that Stitch needs to be recharged, because when he created him he was never fully charged due to the intergalactic police stopping him. He now must construct a machine with Earth parts to charge Stitch before he dies.
Now I won’t give away the ending, but I need to say this: The directors did a great job but the ending puts way too much emotional stress on children. I was near tears so I am assuming that normal 6 or 7 year olds probably cried themselves to sleep. The whole emotional scene was dragged out to maybe provoke thought and acceptance, but it’s really wrong to do to children. Maybe I gave the ending away with that, but it had to be said.
Fantastic movie though, with a good blend of comedy and cartoon reality. I deduct points due to the emotional train wreck of an ending though.
Score:9/10
The Video
Family Friendly Widescreen 1.78:1. The video was more than adequate, considering it is a cartoon and lighting aspects really don’t come into play. You really don’t have to worry about the video here unless your TV is bad.
The Sound
5.1 Dolby Digital. Maybe it was just my settings, but I had to CRANK the volume to about 30 on my TV to hear this properly.
The Extras
A great little short giving the origin of Stitch, a music video from Jump 5 and games hosted by Jumba. Fun stuff, although I didn’t dig the song at all.
Score:9/10
