Lilo and Stitch (2002) - !

Los Angeles Times
"...This is a happy throwback to the time when cartoons were cinema's most idiosyncratic form....LILO & STITCH makes excellent use of the best of Disney's animators..." 06/21/2002 p.C1

USA Today
"...The colors in this comedy are ultra-vibrant and rich....Best of all, the movie has an endearingly cheeky attitude....Witty, touching and well paced, LILO & STITCH is ideal family fare..." 06/21/2002 p.4E

New York Times
"...An example of quiet, confident craftsmanship that tells a sweet, charming tale of intergalactic friendship..." 06/21/2002 p.E13

Box Office
"...LILO & STITCH lives up to the uniqueness of its characters....Perhaps the only movie in recent memory that actually practices what it preaches..." 08/01/2002 p.60

Chicago Sun-Times
"...Delightful....Bright, smart, funny, with lots of pop culture jokes..." 07/28/2002 p.5

Sight and Sound
"...[With] impressive surfing sequences, lightly satirised local colour and the brightest visual palette of any recent Disney cartoon..." 10/01/2002 p.41

Total Film
"...There's a warmth and lushness to the action that few CG-tweaked 'toons possess..." 11/01/2002 p.108

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
Lilo and Stitch of course have trouble communicating, since Lilo is very young and Stitch speaks no English, but the alien, who is a quick study, picks up some words and, more important, some concepts that challenge its existence as a destructive being. Lilo and Nani are learning, too, how to be a family and take care of each other, but the movie doesn't get all soppy at the end and is surprisingly unsentimental for a Disney animated feature. It keeps its edge and its comic zest all the way through, and although it arrives relatively unheralded, it's a jewel. - Roger Ebert
 
ReelViews 7 of 10
With the release of Lilo & Stitch, it's official: the "second Golden Age" of Disney animation, which began promisingly with 1989's The Little Mermaid, is over. Of course, some of Disney's recent efforts - Atlantis and The Emperor's New Groove come to mind - have been uneven, but they haven't been as lackluster as this movie. In terms of storytelling, voice characterization, and visual appeal, Lilo & Stitch seems more like a wannabe production than an actual Disney effort. Lilo & Stitch hails back to the Disney films of the late-'70s and early-'80s, when the craft and creativity had been leeched from the process, turning motion picture animation into an assembly-line approach...Lilo & Stitch is easily Disney's worst animated feature since before The Black Cauldron (1985). Despite countless pop references and the occasionally witty line of dialogue, this movie cannot overcome an uninspired plot about friendship and family, nor can it avoid scenes of crass, clumsy manipulation...Perhaps hand-drawn animation is dead, and the future of the medium lies in the computer-generated realm, which has given us two Toy Storys, Shrek, and Monsters Inc. (amongst others). Already this year, audiences have turned a blind eye to Spirit, which featured gorgeous animation but a weak story. Lilo & Stitch will not be the film to re-affirm the public's love for this kind of animation. There's no reason this form of cinema has to die - if only Disney and its rivals would go back to the drawing board and lavish the kind of care on their new projects that was evident for the likes of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. However, movies like Lilo & Stitch almost guarantee that audiences for traditional animated fare will continue to dwindle. This is product, not craft. - James Berardinelli
 
San Francisco Chronicle 5 of 10
"Lilo & Stitch" is the kind of movie that cries out for the return of the short. Here's a tiresome feature that could be made into a wonderful 20-minute film -- or, with a few adjustments, into two or three 10-minute shorts. "Lilo & Stitch" could be the basis of a whole series of 10-minute cartoons and probably not exhaust itself for years. Instead, the movie's welcome is exhausted long before its 85-minute running time is up...On the plus side, "Lilo" has a couple of things that cartoons need. It has a vivid heroine in Lilo, an 11-year-old whose hostility makes her the class misfit...And it has an attractive look. In setting the film in Hawaii, the animators' have adopted a pastel palette reminiscent of 19th century children's books...Better "Lilo & Stitch" should be like a sitcom or a cartoon series, in which the characters' situation stays the same and only the adventures change. A perverse 11-year-old girl and her devoted mad dog from outer space -- that could easily be the foundation for a series of adventures...Unfortunately, writer-directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois find themselves locked into the structure of a feature film. They're forced to tell the story of Lilo and Stitch's relationship, to give it shape and a sense of arrival. Since this is a kid's movie, the relationship can only head in the direction of schmaltz. So the promising anarchy of the first 10 or 15 minutes is suppressed...On the way to stretching the movie to feature length, the filmmakers introduce an inordinate number of characters, including three agents who arrive on Earth, at the behest of their leader, to bring Stitch home. After a while, it becomes hard to keep track of them all, and anyway, what's the point? In "Lilo & Stitch," the action may be frenetic, but the resolution is never in question. It's just a matter of waiting around for it. - Mick LaSalle