Pinocchio (2022)

Pinocchio (2022)

 

3/10

Starring

Tom Hanks

Benjamin Evan Ainsworth

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

 

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

 

This Disney live-action remake is all skeleton and no flesh.

If I were anywhere near the board of people deciding what movies to make, I would not have approved this one. It felt like an impossible task—remaking a story about a puppet who wants to be a real boy and must overcome many challenges to achieve it. When you watch the 1940 Pinocchio, the fun lies in the comedy surrounding Pinocchio’s journey and his string of bad decisions. I saw the movie in the early ’90s, back when it wasn’t an issue to see a child smoking on screen or drinking beer (not root beer like in this remake). The cruelty of Pinocchio’s experiences and the almost impossible situations he had to escape to save himself and his father were what made the story memorable.

This movie, however, made one big mistake: it didn’t go all the way. Why not? Why stop at being saved from Monstro? Why not show the full ordeal—Pinocchio lying because he was a bad boy? What about Pinocchio being sold for money? And the donkey incident—why not include it? Why not show him being mischievous and running off again?

The story of Pinocchio being constantly swept up in the moment was just frustrating. It didn’t add to the movie; instead, it made it boring, like a watered-down version that could only fill a TV slot late at night when no one’s watching.

The only redeeming feature of this movie is its wonderful CGI. It’s a visually stunning retelling of a man who created a wooden boy to fill the hole left by the loss of his own son. Before going to bed, he wished the puppet could be real, only to wake up and find it moving around his home without strings.

Pinocchio’s task was to prove himself true, brave, and wise to complete his transformation into a real boy. He could only do this with the guidance of Jiminy Cricket as his conscience.

The journey began the next day with a harsh reality check: children belong in school, and puppets belong in puppet shows. This one event set Pinocchio on a path of misfortune, where he nearly lost his life—and his father’s—on his misguided journey through life on his very first day.

I never saw much marketing for this movie, which makes me think Disney also knew it was a dud.