Lilo & Stitch

After the dismal, horrific mess of "Snow White", Disney must be breathing a deep sigh of relief. Their new, live action LILO & STITCH is looking to break the Memorial Day box office record of "Top Gun: Maverick".

Based on the packed theater of families we saw it with, kids of all ages seem to LOVE this one.

I've been a bigger fan of the Mouse House live action remakes than most, and this one falls somewhere in the middle for me. My grandsons would argue though, they LOVE Stitch, going back in history to when they met the character at a Disneyland breakfast years ago.

Unlike the Snow White debacle, Disney got the cast of this intergalactic buddy comedy just right.

Little Maia Kealoha is a charmer as Lilo, a misunderstood, lonely troublemaker whose not afraid to push back on bullies. After recently losing her parents, she's living with her college age sister, Nani, well played by Sydney Agudong.

Nani is struggling to keep the house in order and be a mom/sister to Lilo while juggling jobs and life.

Social Worker Mrs. Kekoa (Tia Carrere, great to see her again) seems to pop in at the worst moments of this crazy thing called life. Carrere was the original voice of Nani in the original animated version.

Meanwhile, intergalactic experiment Stitch has escaped to our big blue planet and he's got two bumbling space rangers on his trail. When they take on human forms, they look a whole lot like the great Billy Magnussen (No Time To Die, Road House, The Offer) and Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover, The Campaign).

Magnussen delivers many of the biggest laughs in the movie as Pleakly, the gentle/goofy part of the duo.

I felt like Galifianakis was sorely underused, but that's likely because I know how funny he can be when cut loose, and he is bound by the soft PG rating here. He does show off some great physical comedy though.

One of my favorite character actors, Courtney B. Vance (The Hunt for Red October, Terminator Genisys) nearly steals the movie as a CIA agent named Cobra Bubbles. That name is only the start. He's having a great time.

Amy Hill, who brought laughs and heart to every season of the Magnum PI reboot that just wrapped up as Kumu, is perfectly cast here as Lilo and Nani's loving next door neighbor whose anything but an old grandma type.

Writer/Director Chris Sanders is the original creator of the OG animated version and he also voices Stitch. The creator of the wildly visually inventive "The Wild Robot", he's teed up for another big hit here.

Our live action Stitch is the CGI marvel that you'd expect from the studio that brought you the live-action "Lion King". Every kid in the audience loved every minute of Stitch on screen, with big laughs and some quiet sobs in a few moments that might surprise you in the final act.

With a $100 million budget, the film looks and sounds great, and you can drop me into Hawaiian locations for a couple hours anytime you'd like.

Kids and families are going to eat this one up.

I'll give it a solid B, but I'm betting all the kids in attendance with me would throw it a big, blue, intergalactic A.