Before anyone asks, I am not going to review those Lilo and Stitch shows based on the TV Show. If I ever review the show, I'll talk about the movies then. But for now, the only sequel that requires my attention is this one. And, like I said in my Tarzan II review, the next four Disney Sequels would actually be fairly decent. They may not be worth the money to true blue fans of the originals, but they aren't exactly time wasters for the kids. Lilo and Stitch 2 is an example of this: a well thought out and fairly well written sequel to a surprisingly touching comedy about a little Hawaiian girl and her pet alien.
Plot: At the start of the movie, Stitch is having a nightmare about turning bad again and causing destruction to Earth. After Stitch wakes up, Lilo tests his goodness level by having him do a few good deeds. Discovering that they are late for hula class, they use their hovercraft to get there.
While at the hula class, Kumu announces that Lilo and her classmates have to prepare to perform at the local May Day festival. Each student is required to create an original dance. After the hula class ends, Mertle insults Lilo, causing them to have a fight, but after taking pictures of the brawl, Stitch forgets to flush the evidence. Kumu thinks that Lilo is not ready for the competition because of the fight with Mertle, but Lilo says that she is ready and "triple promises" to be good. While preparing for the competition, Lilo and Stitch have a hard time coming up with ideas and Nani wants them to enjoy their family fun night. While watching Them! (film clip courtesy of Warner Bros.) on family fun night, Stitch's past comes back to haunt him and he goes berserk in the house. It seems that after Stitch was created, Jumba did not get a chance to fully charge Stitch's molecules as he was arrested by the intergalactic police. At first, this glitch causes Stitch to revert to his old destructive programming, but it will ultimately destroy him if Jumba cannot create a fusion chamber before Stitch's energy runs out for good.
Meanwhile, Stitch's uncontrollable destructive behavior is driving a wedge between him and Lilo and ruining her chances for success at the hula competition. Lilo and Stitch try getting inspiration for their hula, but Stitch keeps malfunctioning because of his molecules. Because Lilo is so concerned about winning the competition, she fails to notice Stitch's glitch and does not understand that the trouble he's causing now is not his fault. She's too busy trying to get him to help her and completely neglects helping him.
Eventually, the two devise a hula based on the legend of Hi'iaka. Lilo gets increasingly mad at Stitch as he ruins their practice sessions. To make matters worse, Jumba is having problems creating the fusion chamber due to the fact that he doesn't have the proper alien technology to build it and has to try building it using ordinary household objects. However, just before the competition, Lilo and Stitch make up and Jumba finally completes the fusion chamber. Then, Stitch has another one of his fits and accidentally scratches Lilo's face; this upsets him so much that he decides to leave Earth, believing himself to be "too dangerous". Lilo finally realizes that something is terribly wrong with Stitch, and in the middle of her performance, she runs away to help him.
As Stitch attempts to leave Earth, Lilo and the rest of the family desperately try to get him back so that they could re-charge him. But Stitch has another outburst, which causes him to crash the spaceship in the Hawaiian mountains. Lilo rides over to the crash site in a mini space scooter, she finds Stitch close to death and struggles to get him into Jumba's fusion chamber. Sadly, she's too late by the time she places him in the machine and Stitch dies. Then Lilo tells him she kept saying how she needed him but he needed her more, and that he's her ohana, and that she will always love him, and then cries, but with her (and everyone else's) love for him, Stitch is revived, leading to a happy ending and the family (along with David who was completely neglected by Nani throughout the film) performs Lilo's hula dance together on the empty stage of the competition. Nani then tells her their mother should be proud of her and a star twinkles in the sky to prove it.
(borrowed from Wikipedia)
What's Bad?: I can't really say that I've found any glaring flaws in this film. The only flaw I have with the film is the ending in which (SPOILERS!), Stitch dies and comes back from the dead. This becomes a common trait seen in these sequels and while it can technically work here, you'll see me have far more problems with this in the future.
What's Good?: Lots of things in this film are improved. The lack of a villain is made up for with stronger depth from all of the characters, including Lilo and the aliens that move in with them.
The highlight of the film, like the first, is the relationships. In this case, it's the relationships between Lilo and Stitch. The best scenes are between Lilo, who is training to win the hula competition and Stitch, who begins to worry that his faulty defects are going to hurt Lilo and the others. You can see the two trying to keep their friendship together despite all of the forces trying to rip them apart.
Overall: The film is a genuine attempt at a sequel, the studio's first since The Lion King II, and manages to match the first in terms of emotional depth. While the humor is a bit geared towards children, the film is still a family film and doesn't insult anyone's intellegence when they're watching it. You can see this if you want. It's pretty decent.
Final Grade: B-
No comments:
Post a Comment