“Pinocchio” was the second animated film by Walt Disney Studios. When it was released in 1940, three years after “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, the film failed at the box office (also because of World War II, which blocked European screens from it). Only two elements in the film were successful in real time: the cricket’s beautiful song “When You Wish Upon a Star” won the Oscar for best song (and has since become the Disney theme song), and the mischievous kitten Figro was so liked by viewers that he got to star in several short films himself. Over the years, “Pinocchio” went on repeated rounds on the screens, accumulated handsome profits and was awarded the status of a golden classic. Today it is considered one of the best Disney movies, and in general. I didn’t get to see it as a child, and when I watched it for the first time during my film studies at the university, I too fell in love with Piguero, and I teared up in front of the story of the elderly carpenter and the naive wooden boy, who go through a series of difficult tests on the way to becoming a real father and son.
Figueroa and the song are also in the new live-action version directed by Robert Zemeckis, but both are given such disappointing performances that already in the first minutes one gets the impression that this time it really is a failure. This impression does not change until the end of the film, which is the worst of Disney’s remakes of their classic animated films. The project came into the hands of Zemkis (“Back to the Future”, “Forrest Gump”) after passing through several directors, and went straight to the streaming service Disney+ without advance screenings for critics (in the USA). This probably indicates that Disney realized that it was a stink bomb.
Zemeckis’ “Pinocchio” – unlike Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” which will be released on Netflix in December – is considered a live-action film because it has human characters played by actors, including Tom Hanks as Geppetto, Cynthia Arribo as the blue spoon and Luke Evans as a coachman who turns children into donkeys . But Pinocchio, Figueroa, Jiminy the cricket, Sophia the seagull, the pair of crooks John the fox and Gideon the cat and other characters are digitally animated creatures, and it’s hard to believe how lifeless and graceless these creatures are – each and every one of them. Because this is a remake of a Disney film, and not another adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s 1883 book, the characters are a rough imitation of the hand-drawn characters. Although being made of wood is intrinsic to his character, in his 3D version Pinocchio has the appearance of a plastic doll, and Figueroa looks like a cheap rubber doll made in China. Zemeckis already experimented with animation in “Train to the Pole”, which was also weak, and it seems that this is not his strong field.
As part of the film’s appeal to today’s children, some changes were made to the original script, which was perceived as too dark. For example, on Pleasure Island, where riotous kids turn donkeys, the current rampage does not involve smoking cigars and the beer they drink is, mercifully, non-alcoholic. Moreover, Pinocchio is not really tempted to join Bacchanalia – Zemeckis’s plastic child is much more educated than in the previous film. He even goes to school, only to be kicked out of class by the racist teacher, claiming that he belongs in a puppet show.
The movie is still set in the Italy of yesteryear, so some of the characters (not Geppetto) speak with a heavy Italian accent. But when honest John (voiced by Keegan-Michael Kay) entices Pinocchio to join Stromboli’s puppet show, he promises him that he will become an “influencer”. It’s the kind of crude anachronisms that disintegrate the world of the film, which for a moment doesn’t coalesce into something whole. Another anachronism is even more infuriating: the wall clocks built by Geppetto feature characters from Disney movies, including The Lion King, Dumbo, Toy Story, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, and Who Framed Rogue Mr. Rabbit?” of Zemeckis. This self gesture sharpens Disney’s takeover of the world’s cultural treasures. Pinocchio also no longer belongs to Collodi and few remember, for example, that the cricket used as his conscience is a Disney invention.
There is only one successful addition in the script – the character of the girl Fabiana (Kian Lamaya) who operates a dancing marionette in Stromboli’s puppet theater, and communicates with Pinocchio through her. But it’s not an original idea – Fabiana’s narrative, including her dream of being a dancer shattered by a crushed leg, was lifted in its entirety from the 1953 film “Lily,” with Leslie Cron as a girl who talks to dolls driven by a dancer whose leg was injured in the war.
Fabiana is one of three characters in the film played by black actresses. About three months ago, the choice to cast Cynthia Aribo in the role of the Blue Fairy sparked an attack of tweets on Twitter, and these received counter-tweets accusing the complainants of racism. What a shame that Arivu is just bad. She recites the rhyming lines given to her (Hanks is also required to rhyme for some reason), and her rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star” pales in comparison. In general, the songs – the favorite old ones and the casual new ones – do not blend together homogeneously. They seem glued on, and contribute to the feeling that the entire film is a rough patchwork quilt. Another standout is the cricket, Jimny Cricket, who speaks in the voice of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He looks bad, he sounds bad, and when he again calls Pinocchio “Pinock”, on the basis of an endearment, it grates like nails on a chalkboard. The 13-year-old boy who voices Pinocchio is also quite annoying, but I won’t name him because he is a minor.
It could be that the educational message of “Pinocchio” has become outdated, because real children are not necessarily brave, honest and selfless – and the new ending refers to this. It could have been interesting if the film had failed even in the basic task of evoking empathy for the characters. We’ll wait for Guillermo del Toro’s version, in stop motion animation (which should hit the screens in November and Netflix in December), to see how he dealt with the ancient parable. The trailer, at least, looks much more promising.
1.5 stars. Pinocchio directed by Robert Zemeckis. With Tom Hanks, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cynthia Aribo, Luke Evans. USA 2022, 105 min.