Pinocchio Review: Robert Zemeckis Brings The Puppet To Today’s World | Disney+
Cast: Tom Hanks, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cynthia Erivo
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Streaming Platform: Disney+
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
It is a decidedly intriguing year for fans of Carlo Collodi’s work. Waiting to find out what Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio will be like, but even after reading the review of Garrone’s Pinocchio, it’s now the turn of Disney, which delves into its origins with the live-action of the legendary 1940 animated classic (rediscover with us the best films about Pinocchio). To direct this “new” version of Pinocchio is none other than Robert Zemeckis, who however renounces the big screen to land exclusively on Disney+. The writer has seen it in preview and is ready to tell you without telling you any lie: a Disney live-action, yet another to tell the truth, which could be done without.
The legendary wooden puppet comes back to life in the new live-action version directed by Oscar winner Robert Zemeckis which recalls Tom Hanks, this time in the role of Geppetto. Pinocchio signed by Zemeckisis nothing more than a modern remake of the Disney classic of the 1940s. His debut is scheduled exclusively on Disney + on September 8, 2022, on the occasion of Disney + Day 2022. The main cast, alongside the Philadelphia actor and Forrest Gump, are Academy Award® nominee Cynthia Erivo (the Blue Fairy), Kyanne Lamaya, Luke Evans (the Postiglione), Lewin Lloyd (Lucignolo) and the Italian Giuseppe Battiston (Perfect Strangers, Bread and Tulips ) who plays Mangiafuoco.
Pinocchio Review: The Story
The song that the puppet sings on the stage of Mangiafuoco seems to sum up the very nature of Zemeckis’ film. That is a project that makes little sense, but which can hardly stand up thanks to a mysterious force. Perhaps, simply, his historical memory of him remains unassailable. The story that this new live-action of Pinocchio wants to tell us is the same as the classic of the 40s, with the same characters and the same aesthetic frame. What, now more than eighty years ago, represented Walt Disney’s incredible and unique vision of Collodi’s literary masterpiece comes back to life in a visual form halfway between live-action and CGI. Before that, it should be noted that the narrative component of the film is almost identical to the original, except for a few slight additions that slightly extend the overall duration of the film.
It must be said, however, that the new ideas compared to the animated classic are not very many and in particular concern the involvement of a couple of characters who never appeared in the cartoon of the last century. The original ideas, however, did not seem too focused, and at times even superfluous in the economy of the whole project. Such a pity, in this sense, because some in-depth attempts seemed interesting to us, even if poorly developed: this is the case of Geppetto’s “past”, mentioned at the beginning of feature films and preparatory to providing us with the identikit of a lonely and depressed elderly man, with the need to pour his lack of affection into a wooden puppet carved with his own hands.
Too bad that this aspect of the character, played very well by a great Tom Hanks, almost immediately ends up in oblivion, a victim of Zemeckis’ need to hurry back to the all-too-safe path traced by the original material. One then wonders what the actual usefulness of this Pinocchio live-action is if, even in an attempt to expand some themes, in the end, however, he stumbles without delving into anything. It is a different work, for example, from what was done in Beauty and the Beast, in which narrative parentheses were offered on the origins of Belle and the Prince; and still different, and much more sensible if you think about it in retrospect, are the operations of Aladdin, The Lion King and Dumbo, who on the other hand tried to tell the same story in a more realistic and live-action way.
Pinocchio Review and analysis
Of true and pure live-action, in this Pinocchio, in the end, there are very few, if not the occasional human characters that occasionally populate the puppet’s imagination. From the aforementioned Geppetto to Mangiafuoco, up to the Coachman (Luke Evans, who tries to give a more over-the-top nuance to a character who only needed to be as disturbing and evil as the original) and Candlewick. But these are just a few elements that revolve around an ocean of computer graphics, which gives the film an all too plastic and fake look, and not at all realistic. This is the case of the Cat and the Fox, anthropomorphic animals made in the image and likeness of their old animated counterparts, of Jiminy Cricket himself and even of Figaro and Cleo, the tender pets of Mastro Geppetto, digitally recreated to give them the same funny expressiveness and macchiettistica of the Classic 40s. All elements that however clash with the idea of live-action, and that make this Pinocchio more of a hybrid with mixed techniques than a real transposition “in flesh and blood”.
Thus, Robert Zemeckis signs a personal film, as Tim Burton did with his Dumbo, in a well-defined bed like that of the live-action remake of his classics which for some years has been becoming one of Disney’s strategies. To do so, on the other hand, is a master of animation mixed with live action: it is no coincidence that who framed Roger Rabbit is perhaps the most famous example of this combination. This allows you to play an animated character (who respects and updates the iconography of the character of the Disney classic) alongside great actors: Tom Hanks and our Giuseppe Battiston. Robert Zemeckis, then, has repeatedly told of the innocence and naivety that clash with the world.
The screenplay is the backbone, it touches on the theme of the “hunger for fame” in the modern world where many think that success is the future, the illusion to be aspired to. And the moral of Pinocchio is useful: being a real person in life does not depend on everything that is out there. If we see it like this, we will forever be wireless puppets, but puppets nonetheless. Zemeckis and Weitz do not alter the tone and spirit of the original work but modernize its rhythm. They had announced, then, an impressive Land of Toys. That non-existent place is the dazzling reality on the small screen: the special animation effects show off all the illusory charm of appearances and are the perfect accompaniment to the fairytale plot that Zemeckis tells in a masterly way, also combining the themes of bullying and social media, presented with great simplicity in an overall convincing work that leaves the ending to the heart of each one: Pinocchio, will become or will not become a real child?
Pinocchio Review: The Last Words
Robert Zemeckis’ live-action Pinocchio is a carbon copy of the 1940 animated masterpiece, but still stripped of the original magic and even forced into the very definition of “live-action”. The choice to take up the aesthetic frame of the original 1: 1, leaving room for anthropomorphic animals and massively exploiting CGI even where there was no need, makes this Pinocchio a rather difficult hybrid to place and recommend. Who should see it? Old fans, mindful of magic that no longer exists? Or the new ones, taking into account that the 1940 masterpiece from which it takes its cue is available on the same platform just a click away?
