Trio of children’s movies to make it through the summer swoon

In the last two weeks, I have taken my children to see three children’s movies currently playing in theaters because, 1. it’s July and we’ve run out of other summer activities, and 2. having them watch on a big screen at the movie theater makes me feel less mom-guilt than them watching small screens at home, for some reason, and 3. we really like popcorn.

‘Elio’

First, we watched “Elio,” the latest movie from Pixar, which features a young, orphaned space enthusiast who lives with his aunt and tries to make contact with extraterrestrial beings. He eventually succeeds — which is not a spoiler, it happens within the first 30 minutes — and makes some intergalactic friends. And some intergalactic enemies.

Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination, finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions and somehow discover who he is truly meant to be. Directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Adrian Molina, and produced by Mary Alice Drumm, the film features the voices of Zoë Saldaña as Aunt Olga, Brad Garrett as Lord Grigon, Jameela Jamil as Ambassador Questa, and Yonas Kibreab as the title character. "Elio" is currently in theaters. | Disney Pixar

“Elio” was, in my opinion, perfectly enjoyable. It wasn’t as affecting as other Pixar movies like “Up” or “Coco,” and wasn’t as visually intricate as “Ratatouille,” but it was enjoyable to watch and I’m fine with a kid’s movie that doesn’t reduce me to a puddle of tears. It’s kind of a nice break, actually. I usually have to emotionally prepare to watch a Pixar film.

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R16ekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R26ekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe

The visuals were bright and fun, if the story was a little rote. It felt geared more toward small children than other Disney/Pixar creations.

But both the kids who went with me, ages 10 and 6, loved it and sat still through the entire 1 hour and 38-minute run time.

‘Lilo & Stitch’

Next, we saw “Lilo & Stitch,” a Disney live-action remake of the 2002 movie about a young girl who lives with her older sister in Hawaii and befriends an alien.

I have, generally, been against the Disney live-action remakes of their beloved animated classics because, up until this point, I had not seen one I enjoyed. They all felt like copies of the originals, but the kind of copy you get when the Xerox machine is running out of ink and you kind of have to squint to read the blurred type. I found these movies to be less visually interesting, with worse story-telling, and a cash grab at best.

This image shows Maia Kealoha, left, and Sydney Agudong in a still from the film "Lilo & Stitch." | Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures via AP

But I liked “Lilo & Stitch,” partly because I’ve never actually seen the original, so the story was completely new to me. The animated version came out when I was in high school, at an age when I wasn’t making a regular habit of seeing the latest Disney movies. And the movie hasn’t made my kids’ Disney+ roster (yet).

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R1eekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R2eekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe

I also preferred this film to the previous live-action remakes because the computer animation was used to bring to life creatures that don’t actually exist. Compared to the “Lion King” and “Jungle Book” remakes that featured CGI animals that looked worse than the real-life versions, or, even more jarring, the CGI humans in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” I had nothing to compare the aliens in “Lilo & Stitch” to, and so liked what I saw.

I’ve seen a lot of criticism of the movie for changing the ending of the original and thereby erasing the critique of colonialism many viewers saw in the original. But that controversy has not affected box office sales. “Lilo & Stitch” is currently the second-highest grossing film of the year behind “A Minecraft Movie.”

My kids loved it and barely moved during the 1-hour and 48-minute run time. You can count on Disney for two things — traumatizing stories about orphans and keeping movies under two hours.

‘How to Train Your Dragon’

Then, finally, we attended a Saturday afternoon screening of “How to Train Your Dragon,” the live-action remake of DreamWorks’ 2010 animated film about a young Viking who forms a forbidden friendship with a dragon.

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Mason Thames, as Hiccup, riding Night Fury dragon Toothless in a scene from "How to Train Your Dragon." | Universal Pictures

It is a shot-for-shot remake of the original, which didn’t bother me as someone who has seen the original exactly one time and forgot most of it. While the story is exactly the same as the original, the visuals are very different and quite a bit scarier. The realistic versions of the dragons made the movie feel more like “Jurassic Park” than a tame kid’s movie, and there where moments when I worried things might get too intense for my 6-year-old.

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R1mekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R2mekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe

They never did, but things did get a little too long. The movie runs 2 hours and 5 minutes, which was about 30 minutes too long for my youngest’s attention span. So during the emotional finale, in some of the movie’s quietest moments, he reclined his chair and then set it upright over and over by pushing the button on his chair armrest, which makes a not-quiet noise when activated. He also somehow managed to lose his shoes at some point during the final quarter.

So I think this movie is best suited for kids 9 and older, and indeed, my 13-year-old and 10-year-old had a great time.

We all did. At all of these movies, actually, because it was somewhere to go and something to do now, during these dregs of summer. We still have another month and a half until school starts, so catch us at “Bad Guys 2” and “Freakier Friday” when they premiere. We’ll be the family eating lots of popcorn.