Stitch! The Movie (2003)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Robert Gannaway and Jess Winfield
Directed by Tony Craig and Robert Gannaway
Starring the voices of Jeff Bennett, Zoe Caldwell, Tia Carrere, Daveigh Chase, Kevin McDonald, Ving Rhames, Kevin Michael Richardson, Chris Sanders, and David Ogden Stiers

Features:

• Trivia Challenge
  
• Experiment Finder
  
• Experiment Gallery
  
• "Aloha, E Komo Mai" Music Video performed by Jump5
  

Released by: Disney
Rating: G
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: Skip it

After Lilo (Chase) and Stitch (Sanders) saved Hawaii and the world from an alien invasion not too long ago, they are living happily with Dr. Hamstaviel (Bennett) and Pleakey (McDonald) and all 625 of Dr. Hamstaviel's other genetic experiments. Trouble is, someone wants to get their hands on them. So, when aliens arive to steal them away, it's up to Lilo and Stitch to save the day yet again.

Rehash and revamp is the modus operandi behind this travesty. The most amazing thing about this movie is that they got most of the voice talent back together. All of the jokes were used in the original movie and were given a much better script in which to breathe--and the whole thing had better animation to boot. The new characters that were created for this movie are just silly. When you consider that half of the fun of the first movie was that Lilo was supposedly the only one who knew that Stitch was an alien, and that idea goes straight out of the window because of the way the original movie ended, this movie can not help but fail. Not only that, but the Elvis numbers went right out of the window. It just feels like this movie was doomed from the beginning. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: with the exception of Pixar, Disney is absolutely imaginatively bankrupt. And Pixar isn't Disney--not really--so...yeah. This movie is just another example of that proved true.

The DVD is pretty much a waste. The first game for kids on the DVD is the "Experiment Finder" game. There is no real payoff for winning the game...at least none that will have the kids clammoring to play it again. Not only that, but once you've played it, you know where they all are, so it just gets more boring from there. At least the trivia game is broken up into two sections. There is a section for trivia about the movie and another section that contains questions about the TV series (wait...there's a TV series?). Again, no payoff here for winning the game.

The "Experiment Gallery" is nothing more than a "biography" about each of the other experiments that are shown in the film. I just don't think that anything text-on-screen is going to keep this target audience occupied for very long...even if it is narrated for them. If you have been reading my DVD reviews on this site for very long, you know how music videos on DVDs really just piss me off. Well, this one is worse that most. It is simply a song from the movie sung by some pop group with a bunch of shots of the movie thrown together without any kind of coherence that I could find. They didn't even give the Pop group some on camera time with this video.

If you really are looking into something Disney to watch, stick to one of the classics. Don't even worry with this direct to video stuff, as it's only stripmining their past.