Pinocchio (2022)

Starring: Tom Hanks, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (voice), Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (voice), Angus Wright, Cynthia Erivo, Sheila Atim, Lorraine Bracco (voice), Keegan-Michael Key (voice), Giuseppe Battiston, Lewin Lloyd, Luke Evans
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Rating: PG
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
2022

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A woodcarver (Tom Hanks) wishes that his boy puppet would come to life, a wish granted by a magical fairy.

Review:

Tim: I've spent enough time ranting against Disney for remaking all their animated classics in live action. I won't mention the creative bankruptcy or cash grab that this entails. But, here we are again. Robert Zemeckis' adaptation of the classic story is a decent movie, but it's significantly worse than the original. It mostly follows the exact same beats as the animated one, so it constantly feels like we've seen this all before... because we have. All the "Chris Pine" jokes and Toy Story references don't help the fact that this movie is completely redundant. It can never shake that sense, which is a big reason why this film fails to meet expectations. That's the central issue. The movie itself is decent- Zemeckis is an experienced director. But, it still begs the question- why? Why would we spend time with this movie when the original is far better and available to us? I don't have the answer.

I've also spent a long time singing the praises of Tom Hanks. I was a bit disappointed he took the role of Gepetto. Of course, he's really good in the role. It's fun to see one of the greatest actors of all time step into this role and do such a good job. But, you still wonder why he wasted his time on this redundant movie. Hanks definitely makes the movie better, but his role is small and supporting and it can't save the film. I thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt was fantastic as Jiminy Cricket. I never would have guessed it was him. I'm not sure how he got his voice to do that, but it was perfect for this character. I also thought Cynthia Erivo was brilliantly cast as the Blue Fairy. She has so little screen time, but her performance was perfect for the time that she had. I loved her work here. Honestly, there's not much else to comment on the cast. Lots of voice actors, they were all fine. Luke Evans randomly shows up for a pointless performance. I'm not sure why he bothered.

The visual effects are definitely impressive, although I still struggle with the fact that I'm watching a live action adaptation of an animated movie where all the most interesting characters are, in fact, animated. Zemeckis has long been a pioneer of visual effects and that shows up here. Pinocchio is rendered beautifully. That's a big appeal of the film- to see this hand-drawn character we all know looking incredible thanks to computer animation. Jiminy Cricket looked a bit weird, but I like that they tried to make him more realistic. The other animal people looked solid. The whale sequence is impressive for its scope. Throughout the movie, the visual effects were a definite strength.

For the story itself, I don't know, you already know it. There's a few things that are purposely changed in this version, but they don't really impact much. We spend a lot more time at Pleasure Island, which doesn't help the movie at all. There's a lot of things to look at, but it's lacking any soul. That's a good summation of the entire movie. The only explanation for why Disney would make worse adaptations of their own movies is for money. There was no attempt to do anything substantially different here, to improve on anything in the original. It's just an updated, less effective version of a great movie. Where's the appeal there?

One final complaint- we have way too many Pinocchio movies. I'm not going to count them all, but even with Disney's 1940 original, Roberto Benigni just played Gepetto in 2020. We have this Disney live adaption, plus Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio the same year. Can someone tell a story that we haven't seen a hundred times before? Please?

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Pinocchio (1940), The Polar Express