• LILO & STITCH - Photo #172 A Hawaiian girl named Lilo discovers that Stitch can do a �stupid pet trick� when he uses his nail to play a phonograph record and the sound comes out of his mouth in this scene from Walt Disney Pictures� delightful new animated comedy, �Lilo & Stitch.� (HANDOUT PHOTO) Photo: HANDOUT
Photo: HANDOUT
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Photo: HANDOUT LILO & STITCH - Photo #172 A Hawaiian girl named Lilo discovers that Stitch can do a �stupid pet trick� when he uses his nail to play a phonograph record and the sound comes out of his mouth in this scene from Walt Disney Pictures� delightful new animated comedy, �Lilo & Stitch.� (HANDOUT PHOTO)

SNOOZING VIEWER

LILO & STITCH: Animation. Starring the voices of Daveigh Chase, Chris Sanders and Tia Carrere. Directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois. (PG. 85 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

"Lilo & Stitch" is the kind of movie that cries out for the return of the short. Here's a tiresome feature that could be made into a wonderful 20-minute film -- or, with a few adjustments, into two or three 10-minute shorts. "Lilo & Stitch" could be the basis of a whole series of 10-minute cartoons and probably not exhaust itself for years. Instead, the movie's welcome is exhausted long before its 85-minute running time is up.

On the plus side, "Lilo" has a couple of things that cartoons need. It has a vivid heroine in Lilo, an 11-year-old whose hostility makes her the class misfit. ("My friends need to be punished," she says, making voodoo dolls out of spoons.) And it has an attractive look. In setting the film in Hawaii, the animators' have adopted a pastel palette reminiscent of 19th century children's books.

But Stitch is a problem. Genetically concocted on a foreign planet, bred to be tiny, strong and destructive, he is a spirit of mischief. We're supposed to regard him as an adorable little terror, perhaps, but as drawn he's homely -- six legs, too many teeth. As for the terror part, no sooner does he show his personality than does the movie begin its process of reforming him, of teaching him the value of love and family.

That's what's wrong with making "Lilo & Stitch" into a feature film: Everything good about it is in the setup. For example, there's a social worker (the voice of Ving Rhames), who is thinking of taking Lilo away from her sister, her only guardian. This makes for embarrassing moments, with the social worker consistently showing up at inopportune times. But it's not as if we want that plot element to go somewhere. If he takes Lilo away, it's terrible. If he becomes friends with the sisters, it's boring.

Better "Lilo & Stitch" should be like a sitcom or a cartoon series, in which the characters' situation stays the same and only the adventures change. A perverse 11-year-old girl and her devoted mad dog from outer space -- that could easily be the foundation for a series of adventures. The pleasure would be in sharing those adventures, not in watching their relationship evolve.

Unfortunately, writer-directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois find themselves locked into the structure of a feature film. They're forced to tell the story of Lilo and Stitch's relationship, to give it shape and a sense of arrival. Since this is a kid's movie, the relationship can only head in the direction of schmaltz. So the promising anarchy of the first 10 or 15 minutes is suppressed.

On the way to stretching the movie to feature length, the filmmakers introduce an inordinate number of characters, including three agents who arrive on Earth, at the behest of their leader, to bring Stitch home. After a while, it becomes hard to keep track of them all, and anyway, what's the point? In "Lilo & Stitch," the action may be frenetic, but the resolution is never in question. It's just a matter of waiting around for it. .

This movie contains mild cartoon violence.