Pinocchio (2022)

Last night, I checked out the latest Disney live-action remake, “Pinocchio,” which came out on Disney+ three days ago. We have been seeing these live-action remakes from Disney for what, 12 years? Mostly, they’ve been hit or miss. Some were very successful, like “The Lion King” and “Aladdin.” Some not so much, like “Lady and the Tramp” and “Mulan.” Occasionally there have been some interesting ones that may or may no count, like “Pete’s Dragon” or “Cruella.” Now we are back to one of the true animated aces of the Disney OG classic time: “Pinocchio” form 1940. This is one of the films that pushed the idea of what was possible with animation at the time and still holds up very well. Julian Lytle said in his review, “The story told through the Walt Disney lens always felt like a morality play—a puppet who wants to be a real boy has to learn right from wrong through his mistakes and losses, even though he has a guiding voice to tell him when he’s straying. It was such a compelling story that I remember adults referring to “your nose growing” when you would lie or to explain lying to you. Since the story is so well known, I’m not going to do the usual recap.”

This remake is directed by Robert Zemeckis who teams up with his regular actor partner Tom Hanks as Geppetto. Lytle said, “Now, as we’re used to, this film almost slavishly brings back the aesthetic design of the original.” Hanks looks like a perfect real-life representation of Geppetto. Even Pinocchio himself is a perfect recognition. Lytle said, “Even Pinocchio himself is an ideal realization. His living puppet look is cool, but you can’t help but think it’s there to sell a toy—much like those to-scale and perfectly accurate Woody dolls they sell.” The voice work by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, as the title character, is excellent. His performance is nice and immature as we remember. Joseph Gordon-Levitt voices the classic Jiminy Cricket and adds in the right amount of formula while keep the sound of the character’s voice complete. Keegan-Michael Key does well as Honest John, even if he’s not in the movie much. Cynthia Erivo is also lovely as The Blue Fairy. The film also adds in a new character, Fabiana, a puppeteer who works for Stromboli, played by Giuseppe Battiston. Lytle admitted, “Kyanne Lamaya, who plays the character, does a fine job, even though I don’t know what the characters add to the story’s classic thematic point.”

Lytle continued, “Going from that theme, Fabiana is part of a change the filmmakers made that moves the point of the story into lessons that I don’t think the structure of the classic Pinocchio works in telling.” In this new story, while Pinocchio is still immature and still needs to learn right from wrong, with Jiminy’s help, the film decides that he rarely does bad things. Pinocchio is constantly tricked or broken by others. This choice, while subtle, makes most of the point doubtful. Despite him not ignoring Jiminy, they are constantly separated so that he can’t advise. Lytle said, “Pinocchio knows what’s right but, as I said, the world is the flaw as he’s inherently good. Jiminy, Geppetto, The Blue Fairy, and Fabiana are the only good beings he meets. The film, I feel, is about accepting disabled and other children as they are versus what a parent might want them to be. While this is a good message, I don’t know if it was worth changing the classic.” Scenes like when Pinocchio goes crazy and drinks and smokes or lies and the lesson he learns after the bad results of his decisions is also a worthy lesson.

Unfortunately, the changes also conflict with themselves as Pinocchio is literally the satisfaction of a wish Geppetto makes as a way of remembering his deceased son. This makes the ending more confusing. Lytle ended his review by saying, “I wished they went in a new direction with this movie like they did with Cruella, Maleficent, and Pete’s Dragon versus this remix we got here.”

This remake almost comes close to being decent, but the changes they make just keep going and it’s like, why are you changing those things? I don’t really recommend this, as this isn’t one of the terrible ones that I felt nothing but complete pain while watching it, but this is one of those that if you see once, you never have to see it again. I don’t think there was really a need to remake Pinocchio, but Disney really needs to stop rehashing the animated ones into live-action. Children can see the animated versions and like them just fine. The added scenes in this felt really weird and I think the original told the story in a nice, short, and better way.

Thank you for joining in on my review today. Look out next Friday for the continuation of “Starship Troopers Month.”