In Disney’s Lilo and Stitch the main character Lilo a young Hawaiian girl, adopts what she thinks is an ugly dog from the local pound. What she ends up adopting however is an alien. Lilo couldn’t just adopt any alien; she has in fact adopted one of the galaxies most wanted who happened to escape earlier from his intergalactic jail.
Lilo names the “dog” Stitch, and like any child with a new puppy makes every attempt to make Stitch her new best friend. Stitch on the other hand goes out of his way to make Lilo’s life difficult, and cause havoc where ever he possibly can. Stitch was a creature designed to destroy everything that it came near, and destroy he does.
As if having a destruction bound extraterrestrial for pet wasn’t difficult enough Lilo has other bigger problems on her hands as well. Lilo’s parents were killed in a car accident, leaving Lilo’s older sister Nani to care for herself and Lilo as well. Social services makes guest appearances in the movie to see how Lilo is doing, occasionally threatening to take Lilo away when they see the destruction in their home caused by Stitch.
Due to their family situation Lilo and Nani have a strong sense of family. They talk often in the movie about “ohana” which means family in Hawaiian.
Overall this is a cute story that will leave you with warm fuzzy’s. It is wonderful to see how close the two sisters are in this movie. While in the end everything is ok, the girls go through several real life situations in the movie they fight, and they make up and act just as sisters do. When there’s trouble at home social services shows up on the scene and attempts to intervene.
While I personally think this movie is appropriate for kindergarten age children, the movie is rated PG. In the beginning of the movie there are some rather scary looking characters, and some children may be upset by the thought of their parents dying and being raised by a sibling. It could also be hard for some younger children to watch Nani try to fight to keep her sister from going to into foster care.
The first time I saw this movie I was in France. I saw the movie in it’s entirety in French and absolutely loved it. If you have younger children who are learning Spanish or French I would recommend letting them watch it in the language. As a cartoon it translates very well, and the language is easy enough that beginners in the foreign language can still understand what’s going on.
Lilo and Stitch is available on DVD from your favorite DVD retailer and online at Amazon.com