What do you get when you team up an alien who's equal parts Ren Hoek and Stewie Griffin with an orphaned Hawaiian girl obsessed with both Elvis and photographing the fat white tourists that lounge around her town like so many beached whales?  A Disney summer animation extravaganza should be the answer farthest from your mind, but that's just what the Mouse House's Lilo & Stitch is all about.  It's a big step in the right direction for a studio that, as of late, has struggled with traditional non-Pixar animation (Atlantis, anyone?).  In fact, it's Disney's best summer offering since the last time a no-nonsense cartoon girl with straight black hair hit the screen (that'd be 1998's Mulan).

Lilo opens in a galaxy far, far away as fat, four-eyed scientist Jumba (David Ogden Stiers, The Majestic) is on trial for creating an odious four-armed creature lovingly referred to as Experiment 626.  Jumba faces punishment, but 626 is banished from Planet Tura permanently.  Being a crafty little bugger built to create turmoil and chaos, 626 escapes and blasts off into space before anyone can stop him.  Heading for the Hawaiian Islands, he is pursued by both Jumba and one-eyed Planet Earth expert Pleakley (Kevin McDonald, The Kids in the Hall), who are under strict orders to capture the devious, dangerous beast.

Meanwhile, in Hawaii, little Lilo (Daveigh Chase) is having tremendous personal problems.  Her parents are dead, and older sister/guardian Nani (Tia Carrere, Relic Hunter) is overly frazzled from working full-time and trying to fend off a social worker (Ving Rhames, M:I-2) who wants to put Lilo in a foster home.  In very un-Disney-like fashion, Lilo does a lot of bad and weird things, like practicing voodoo and biting her classmates (Chase was in Donnie Darko, if that gives you any indication of how messed-up this kid is).  In an attempt to settle her younger sister down, Nani takes Lilo to the local dog pound to pick out a puppy.  They come home with 626, who Lilo re-dubs Stitch.  Havoc of varying levels ensues, including a scene where Stitch uses Lilo as a human shield when Jumba and Pleakley come a-callin'.

What follows is predictable, but presented in a fashion that remains somewhat fresh (an added bonus - nobody sings!).  Sure, it smacks of E.T., and Pleakley looks just like the patriarch from The Oblongs, but Lilo entertains by being unusual, at least for a family-oriented cartoon.  There's a couple of nice messages, including both the obvious Ugly Duckling theme ("nobody gets left behind") and the slightly more subtle ("I hope, one day, you have a child as evil as you are").  Writer/co-director/voice of Stitch Chris Sanders (he was a writer on Mulan) peppers the film with pop-culture references and nods to a bunch of summer blockbusters, including Men in Black, Jaws and Godzilla.  With any luck, Sanders' film will be mentioned in the same breath as those.

1:25 -

for mild sci-fi action