THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

I don’t remember the last time there was this much hype for a Disney live-action remake (the box office numbers so far have certainly backed it up), and I gotta be honest. I was sold on Lilo & Stitch thanks to that amazing trailer. As the reviews (and spoiler-full Reels) came in, I grew more and more nervous about the film, and while Lilo & Stitch was still a pretty serviceable remake, there were enough big changes to render the result more disappointing than I was expecting. I feel like I’ve got a lot to say on the bad side, so I’ll start with the good.

The central relationships of the movie—between Lilo, Nani, and Stitch—remained strong, and both Maia Kealoha and Sydney Agudong were delightful in their first roles to me. Their chemistry was on full display, occasionally coming off more connected than their animated counterparts. I enjoyed Billy Magnussen’s take on Pleakley, too, and I appreciated that he brought an actual personality and voice to the role, unlike his alien coworker.

In an unfortunately long list of shortcomings, I was most disappointed with Jumba, as a character and in the performance. Zach Galifanakis’ performance needs to be the dictionary definition of “phoned in” from here on out; he was truly terrible, lacking both energy and accent and making Jumba severely boring. The script didn’t do Jumba any favors, either, destroying his character to aid a new, unnecessary plot line and turning him into Gantu in some ways.

The narrative whiplash that this film gave me was intense, from Jumba’s evil turn to Nani’s *interesting* decision near the end of the movie, and the many trivial changes in between. Why doesn’t Pleakley cross-dress? Why is Cobra Bubbles super uninvolved and inexplicably unrelated to social work or the Galactic Federation? Who is Tūtū? The clarity of the film’s themes suffered under the weight of all of these narrative changes—I acknowledge, though, that the “kuleana” of self-preservation idea was a pretty solid one—and it seemed that “Ohana”, in a cruel twist, was left behind.

While Lilo & Stitch was bright and colorful—nowhere near the visual equivalent of the OG—and occasionally heartwarming and fun, it unfortunately followed in the footsteps of live-action remakes that came before, unable to keep up with its animated predecessor. Also, why’d we take out all the good lines? “Here, educate yourself!”, “she thinks it’s fancy?”, and “my friends need to be punished” found dead in a ditch.