Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers, shall we?

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking — “Ugh, another Disney remake?”

Well, hear me out… and then form your own opinions. I did. And I regret everything.

Also here’s a clip from the film the Hawaiian Rollercoaster Song scene.

Also here’s the full song for the remake

📜 Plot Rundown

The story beats? Nearly identical to the 2002 animated classic.
So identical, in fact, that you’d honestly be better off just watching that again.

If you need a refresher, check out my review of the original Lilo & Stitch.
This review is strictly about how the 2025 remake somehow botches nearly everything else.

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✅ Pros

The film attempts to update a beloved classic with modern visuals and CG.
Some fans may enjoy seeing familiar characters in a new medium.

That’s it. That’s the list.

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❌ Character Changes That Hurt the Story

Cobra Bubbles is no longer a retired CIA agent turned social worker. Now he’s an active U.S. government agent, which removes the entire plot line about the government keeping a watchful eye on Lilo.

Also, instead of sunglasses and a suit, he now wears normal glasses, a white fedora, a blue Hawaiian shirt, and shorts. Yeah… this isn’t Cobra Bubbles.
No offense to Courtney B. Vance, but he doesn’t have the gravitas that Ving Rhames brought to the original.

Captain Gantu? Completely removed. Just gone. The entire alien subplot dynamic he brought? Deleted.

Jumba, originally a chaotic, flamboyant mad scientist (voiced by David Ogden Stiers), has been turned into a dry, cold, emotionally cut-off figure.

He doesn’t smile.
He never raises his voice.
And he no longer has his thick Russian accent — instead, he just sounds like Zach Galifianakis mumbling through a podcast.

His weapons? Replaced with a generic portal gun. Gone is the unstable tech and chaotic energy that once matched his personality.

Also for 90% of this film both Pleakley and Jumba are in human form—guess that saves the budget.

Also I got to mention the casting. Originally Zach Galifianakis was gonna play Pleakley, but instead that role was given to Billy Magnussen.

Which is definitely a choice.

There’s a new character who ends up being responsible for taking Stitch to the pound. This feels tacked on and completely unnecessary.

The “Ugly Duckling” story arc — central to Stitch’s growth — is gone. Just… gone.

Also we’re robbed of the iconic Stitch dressed like Elvis and dancing with the ukulele. Shame, shame.

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❌ Plot Alterations That Undercut the Message

Nani is portrayed as being college-bound, which shifts focus away from her role as a struggling caretaker — arguably the emotional backbone of the original.

The film ends with Lilo being adopted by Cobra Bubbles, Pleakley, and the new character, rather than staying with Nani. This makes zero emotional or narrative sense. It completely breaks the story’s core message about sisters forming a found family.

The remake shifts focus away from the idea of ‘ohana (family), and instead seems more interested in government conspiracies and alien politics.

🎭 Tone, Pacing, and Vibes — All Wrong

🚨 The Opening Scene — Fast, Loud, and Empty

The original film opened gradually, with mystery and intrigue. Here? Within three minutes, Stitch has escaped, Jumba and Pleakley are dispatched, and the Federation has spoken — all crammed into a rapid-fire info dump.

There’s no pacing, no buildup, and definitely no time for new viewers to feel awe or stakes. It’s like someone’s watching the clock and screaming, “Faster! We have a TikTok audience!”

🤐 The Comedy Doesn’t Land (for the most part)

Comedy in this remake is jammed in randomly, often undercutting emotional or serious moments. The Galactic Council scenes are more like bad SNL sketches, and Pleakley’s antics now feel forced and out of place.

In animation, his goofiness worked — here, it’s just awkward.
It’s like the movie forgot humor should come from the characters, not be flung at us like a studio-mandated pie.

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🚪 Major Issues with Jumba & the Film’s Tone

1. Jumba’s Portal Gun: The Least Jumba Thing Ever

Gone are his chaotic death rays and unstable gadgets. His new main weapon is… a portal gun. Because nothing says “unpredictable alien menace with a PhD in chaos” like a tool from Portal 2.

2. Jumba Is Cold, Stoic, and Totally Off-Brand

Instead of the eccentric, emotionally explosive madman, we get a quiet, deadpan alien who delivers exposition and sulks. He feels like he wandered in from a Star Trek audition.

This completely ruins his dynamic with Pleakley — no odd couple vibes, no chaos duo, no fun.

Heck, they changed some of his lines, for example at the beginning of the original film he screams the words I PREFER THE TERM EVIL GENIUS!

In this remake he says calmly, I prefer the term deranged genius. Wow thanks Disney for that change, that was so necessary.

3. The Home Invasion Scene — Misjudged and Uncomfortable

In the original, Jumba and Pleakley’s Earth mission was hilarious chaos. Here? There’s a weirdly intense scene where Jumba stalks Nani and Lilo through their house at night — no music, no jokes, just creepy lighting and silence.

It plays like a horror movie.
You can practically hear the “Jason Voorhees is behind the door” music that never comes.

4. Their Designs Are… Off

Pleakley looks too slimy.
Jumba looks like a balding man aging badly.
And again — he never smiles. This man once cackled with joy at his own chaos. Now he just looks like he manages a failed Applebee’s franchise.

Also might be a small nitpick but Jumba isn’t big enough in this film. Again, this film character assasinates Jumba.

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🧠 The Film Doesn’t Trust Its Audience’s Intelligence

Everything is spoon-fed. Emotional moments might as well have flashing neon signs. Characters over-explain their motives.

The remake treats the audience like they’ve never watched a movie before.

What was once told through subtle visual storytelling — like Stitch learning empathy through Lilo’s picture book — is now told through blunt exposition or removed entirely.

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🍦 The Ice Cream Tourist Gag Is Back… But Worse

Remember the sunburnt American tourist in the original? The guy whose ice cream kept dropping?
That gag returns… sort of.

This time, the man is Hawaiian. And instead of ice cream, he drops a snow cone. Over and over.

There’s no punchline, no escalation, no commentary. Just snow cone—splat.

It misses the joke entirely, replacing a clever recurring gag with an empty visual shrug.

Also, the second time this gag comes around it looks like he’s tilting his snow cone cup slightly just so it can drop, great editing.

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💃 And Finally… the TikTok Joke

The film ends with Cobra Bubbles going upstairs to check if Lilo’s asleep.
He sees a glowing light and sighs:

“That doesn’t look like sleep… she better not be doing one of those TikTac dances.”

Yes. “TikTac.” Because he’s old and doesn’t understand technology.

That’s the joke. That’s the final line of the movie.
Roll credits.

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🎯 Rating Time

Anyways, enough ranting. Let’s get the rating out of the way.

Overall, yeah—I’d recommend sticking to the original Lilo & Stitch.
This is another corporate cash grab. But this time with a soul.

Ao do I think this film deserved its big screen debut? Nope should have gone straight to Disney Plus.

So I’ll give Lilo & Stitch (2025) a solid 4/10.

⚠️ Spoilers ahead. And headaches. Possibly a hernia. You’ve been warned.

🚀 Third Act Spoilers (Brace Yourself)

So, we open our third act with Jumba (Not-Jumba? Faux-mba?) absolutely wrecking Lilo’s home in a desperate bid to convince Stitch to return to space with him. Because nothing says “Let’s be reasonable” like demolishing property. Stitch, being the brilliant genetically engineered creature he is, agrees. So Jumba teleports them aboard his ship like it’s just another Wednesday.

Lilo follows.

Back on Earth, Nani, Cobra Bubbles (who is now a literal government agent, because why not), David, and the nosy neighbor all return to what used to be a home and now resembles the aftermath of a kaiju bar fight. Inside, they find Pleakley… now in his alien form.

Surprise! Cobra immediately arrests Pleakley on the spot because again, he’s an agent now and this is apparently a sci-fi buddy cop movie. Nani, David, and the neighbor all beg Cobra to help them rescue Lilo. He agrees, because “Sure, why not?” has become the script’s motto by this point. So they all pile into their cars and race after the spaceship.

Meanwhile, in orbit (or possibly a Chuck E. Cheese play tunnel — the design isn’t clear), Lilo starts smashing buttons to free Stitch, who’s stuck in a glass container like a Pikachu in a Poké Ball. The ship’s pod opens, sucks Jumba out like a vacuum, but he’s too plump to fit — until Stitch hits the “slim down” button on his human disguise. Because of course that’s a feature.

With that resolved in the dumbest possible way, the ship crashes into the ocean. Lilo gets trapped under debris. Stitch tries to save her but can’t — he’s too heavy. (This is not a joke, that’s the actual plot point.)

So in comes David. He heroically rescues Lilo and swims her to shore. Nani? She goes full superhuman, picks up Stitch — this super-dense, waterlogged alien — and hauls him underwater all the way to land on foot. Just another day for Big Sister of the Year.

Once on shore, they revive Stitch using car jumper cables. Because naturally someone brought those to an ocean rescue. And guess what? He’s alive! Hooray! Science!

Now enter the alien councilwoman and her fleet, finally showing up after napping through 90% of this mess. She beams Jumba (Not-Jumba?) back to the ship for arrest because, once again, this is somehow not the real Jumba. We’ve been punk’d by a cosmic impersonator.

But then Stitch and his emotionally exhausted gang convince her to let him stay, thanks to Cobra Bubbles’ promise to keep everything hush-hush. She’s convinced by the power of family and secretive government cover-ups. Touching.

Also missing: the iconic adoption paperwork moment from the original. Guess that was too heartfelt for this version.

Pleakley volunteers to stay behind because he’s weirdly happy about everything Earth-related. Almost too happy. He’s clearly not Pleakley. The balance of personalities is off: one is overly chipper, the other is just perpetually grumpy. The soul of the original is gone. But hey — family, right?

So the movie ends with a big warm-fuzzy twist. Lilo doesn’t get adopted by Nani. Nope. Instead, she’s adopted by Nani’s neighbor and David, so Nani can go to college and live her best life. But don’t worry, she’ll be nearby, and she’ll totally visit. So now “Ohana means no one gets left behind” has become:

“Don’t leave anyone behind, except maybe yourself for educational aspirations and off-screen closure.”

“Just remember kids, ur a burden to ur older siblings. Let them go do their thing”

Cool. Except that’s not the message of the original film, that’s butchering your message.

They turned the message from:
🩷 “Family is who we choose to hold on to, even when life tries to tear us apart.”

To:
📋 “Family is whoever can manage your responsibilities while you go chase your dreams. You can swing by on holidays.”

But wait, there’s more!

In the credits, we see Lilo and Nani talking on Skype. Awww. Then Nani portals in using Jumba’s sci-fi gadget, because sure, that’s a thing now. Cobra, ever the responsible agent-parent-whatever, hears a noise and storms upstairs. He sees a bright light and mutters:

“That’s not sleeping… sigh, she better not be doing one of those TikTac dances.”

TikTac. Let that sink in.

He opens the door and sees the girls and Stitch peacefully sleeping together, cuddled up like a Hallmark card.

The End. Anyways hope y’all enjoyed this review.