REVIEW: Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

Review by Jon Donnis

Another day and another Pinocchio film. It was only a few months ago I reviewed the terrible Disney Live Action Pinocchio with Tom Hanks in it, that was a stinker, in part due to the usual woke decisions of Disney, to insert identity politics into what is supposed to be a 19th century story. Well this time we have Guillermo del Toro's take on Pinocchio, with a fully animated stop motion version, based on Gris Grimly's Pinocchio design from his 2002 edition of the 1883 Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, this time the film reimagines the story in 1930s Fascist Italy as "a story of love and disobedience as Pinocchio struggles to live up to his father's expectations, learning the true meaning of life."

We start the film with Master Geppetto (David Bradley), woodcarving and living peacefully in 1930s Italy with his very much alive son Carlo. World War 1 has broken out, and planes are often seen above.

One day while helping at the local Church, Geppetto sends his son out to find a flawless pine cone, a plane drops a bomb that destroys the church and kills Carlo, while Geppetto survives.

Over the next 20 years Geppetto mourns the loss of his son, one day he plants a pin cone near Carlo's grave. The grief is too much for Geppetto and he turns to drink. The pine tree grows and a cricket named Sebastian finds a home in the tree.

In a fit of grief and rage Geppetto chops down the tree, and decides to carve a new son out of the wood. He carves the puppet but passes out drunk.

While Geppetto is unconscious, a blue fairy appears, called Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton), and gives life to the puppet, and names him Pinocchio. She is confronted by Sebastian (Ewan McGregor), she convinces him to guide Pinocchio, and help him become a good boy, in exchange she grants him a wish to become famous if he succeeds.

The next day Geppetto wakes up hungover, and discovers the now living Pinocchio. Shocked and disturbed Geppetto leaves the house to go to the church, Pinocchio follows him and appears in the church while everyone is praying. Imagine their shock when they open their eyes!!

Geppetto decides to send Pinocchio to school the next day, so he can learn how to be a good boy, but on the way, Pinocchio is stopped by ringmaster and puppeteer Count Volpe Christoph Waltz (Christoph Waltz) after his monkey Spazzatura (Cate Blanchett) informs him of a puppet without strings. He convinces Pinocchio to join his circus and makes him sign a contract. Later Geppetto goes to the circus to find and rescue Pinocchio, but in a tussle with Volpe, Pinocchio gets hit by a car and dies, and finds himself in the afterlife.

Death informs Pinocchio that he is immortal and that he will have to go back to the real work once a sand timer as run out. She explains people in the living world will outlive him.

Pinocchio goes back to the real world, but after an argument with Geppetto, Pinocchio returns to the circus, which soon after, leaves town.

What follows is a strange film which turns into more of an adventure, with fascist Italy involved, getting eaten by giant sea creatures, and eventual reunion with Geppetto, and a rather depressing end.

This is a strange film, it is full of songs sung by the various characters, but this is not a kid's film, but it is also not really an adult film. It is just something a bit weird.

The animation is incredible. The voice acting is excellent as you would expect from the names involved. But to me this just does not feel like Pinocchio. And I am not talking about the terrible Disney versions either, which many assume are the originals. I don't know, I can imagine lots of highbrow critics loving this and going on about nuance, and history, but your average film viewer, I am not sure how they will take it.

The film has just finished and I have no interest to watch it again, but I did not hate it. It was just something quite different, and not at all what I expected.

The Good

Excellent animation, an interesting story, and great voice acting.

The Bad

I hate musicals or any films which have singing as part of the story. That's just me though. The ending was also a bit depressing.

Overall

This is a hard one to score. The film is not bad, it's not great either in my opinion. I still would say that Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio from 2019 is still the ultimate film version.

If you are a fan of the Pinocchio books and the various films that have spawned from that, then you will be interested to see another take on it.

I score Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio a 6/10

Out now on Netflix.

https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80218455

REVIEW: Pinocchio (2022) - Starring Tom Hanks and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth

Review by Jon Donnis

Pinocchio is one of those titles that has been made and remade many times, and although the Disney cartoon version is the most famous, there have been plenty of other films and cartoons made, mainly due to the fact the story went into the public domain in 1940.

Well for reasons that no one has explained, Disney has decided to remake their own version of Pinocchio from 1940, this time in a live action format with CGI characters.

We find ourselves in 1895 in a small village in Italy, Jiminy Cricket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has entered the home of an elderly woodcarver Geppetto, played by a curly haired Tom Hanks.

Geppetto has been working on a marionette puppet based on his dead son, keep it light Disney! we then get a silly scene where Tom Hanks thinks up the name  Pinocchio, which is made of "Pine" and then he just sort of comes up with occhio, of course the problem here is that the original book is in Italian, and the occhio means eye.

Geppetto is about to go to bed and sees a shooting star, so makes a wish. I think you know this bit.

A while late while Geppetto is asleep, the star sends a ray of star light which bounces off a mirror and brings Pinocchio to life, and he then visited by affirmative action hire Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo), who then promises to make Pinocchio a real boy if he acts brave, truthful and selfless, and appoints Jiminy to look over Pinocchio and to teach him right from wrong.

In the morning Geppetto wakes up and finds Pinocchio is alive!, instead of grabbing a shovel and whacking this monstrosity, which is what we would all do in this situation, he becomes overjoyed. Before you know it, Pinocchio is being sent to school. Something which no one seems to think is that strange.

Throw in a deceptive, anthropomorphic red fox called Honest John (Keegan-Michael Key) who is trying to con Pinocchio, the head teacher throwing Pinocchio out of school, due to him being a puppet, and you have something of a bastardisation of the original story that should appeal to kids.

Pretty much everyone knows the story of Pinocchio, or at least a version of it. I am not quite sure why Disney decided they needed to release this, other than just an easy cash in, but this film will soon be forgotten and kids will go back to watching the 1940s version instead.

There was a 2019 Italian version of the film released, which is much closer to the original book and done in a much better way and with no CGI. I would advise anyone interested in the story to watch that instead.

The Good

The CGI is of the highest quality, Tom Hanks is decent as Geppetto, and it is an easy film to watch.

The Bad

I just found it slow in parts, and at no point found myself caring whatsoever about Pinocchio, and that is a huge problem for a film like this. Not a patch on the 1940s cartoon, and nowhere near as good as the 2019 film of the same name.

Overall

This is not a bad film, don't get me wrong, it is just a film that no one really asked for. Maybe kids will like it, but it doesn't really bring anything new or original to the story, and perhaps it suffers because there have been so many versions of the film, and the 2019 release is widely regarded as the best of the lot.

I Score Pinocchio (2022) a fair 5/10

Out now in cinemas.