Lilo & Stitch

A remarkable mixture of charm, absurdity -- almost to the point of surrealism -- and comedy, including a more than a few laugh-out-loud moments. Oddly, for a Disney movie, this outing obviously owes a lot to the work of Dr. Seuss; some of the alien characters owe much in their morphology to Seuss drawings, though that applies less to Stitch, the titular visitor. His human partner, Lilo, immediately earns the viewer’s warmth and admiration, displaying an unusual ability from her earliest on screen acts to combine sweetness and stubbornness -- often outright obnoxiousness -- in a way that packs a punch without ever making her unlikable. It’s a great balancing act upon which much of the movie’s success pivots. Stitch himself is not quite so lovable; the character is largely a blank at first, then comes across as a jerk -- and a destructive one at that, and more than just in the physical sense -- before finally, and somewhat astonishingly, achieving a transformation that makes the audience really care about whether or not it all works out. The supporting characters are a mixed bag; the humans are nicely developed and likable, while the aliens besides Stitch are somewhat one-note, a bit shallow in development, and oddly prone to shifting from good guy to bad without much justification. (It is worth giving a nod to the “blending in” efforts of the two principle aliens hunting the fugitive Stitch, which provide some of the best comedic visuals of the whole piece.) Finally, it’s a pleasure to mention that both the Hawaiian setting and the main (human) characters’ ethnic background are used to excellent effect here -- and, mercifully, because this film was made before woke madness took over the world, that is accomplished without everything turning into a vehicle for identitarian preaching. Lilo, Nani, and David just are who they are, and are not called upon to be standard bearers for anything else. That’s probably why most of this movie is so enjoyable. I’m sorry I missed this when it was new, and I’m so glad I had the chance to give it a look now. One of the best efforts of the “second tier” of the canon, and very much worth the viewer's time.

Pocahontas

Success often breeds ambition. Ambition often breeds hubris. And hubris leads to mistakes--or at the very least overreaching. The phenomenal success of the previous three movies from Disney may have contributed to the vexing problem that is this film. It’s not particularly bad, but there are so many issues with this work that it is somewhat distracting even as you are viewing it. For instance, the tone is very uneven; the underlying story is so serious--the viewer would have to be a total ignoramus not to recognize that--that even attempts at comic relief seem strange and inappropriate. This seems like a movie that would have been better if they had just played it straight. The question of historical accuracy--or lack thereof--hangs over every frame of the production. Clearly, the producers got plenty of native input, and their hearts were in the right place, but you can still forgive those who see in this piece a total historical whitewashing. Meanwhile, on relatively mundane levels, the movie, as a movie, has many hit or miss elements. The animation is beautiful, to be sure. The songs are mostly nothing special, though "Colors of the Wind" does stand out. The cute little animal characters, as noted before, don’t really belong here; you almost sense they’re in the story to provide cover, to let the filmmakers claim it’s just a kids movie after all. Last but not least, the question of how these people can even talk to each other is largely glossed over. (Clearly, some story elements are compacted timewise.) To be sure, this is a movie, a fictionalization of the true tale, and therefore there’s room for artistic license. But this viewer can’t say that that liberty was taken in the service of something great. It's an attempt at something special, but ultimately one that did not hit the mark.