I might be late to the party when writing this and I might sound like a broken record when talking about this movie, but Robert Zemeckis did a really solid job adapting ‘Pinocchio’ to live-action. It may not have been as great as Guillermo Del Toro’s version but that doesn’t mean that the film is terrible.
The 2022 Disney remake comes off as mostly unchanged from the classic 1940 film and sees the titular puppet come to life with the help of Cynthia Erivo’s Blue Fairy and must learn to be brave, truthful, and unselfish in order to become a real boy.
He is guided by his diminutive companion named Jiminy Cricket but is sidetracked by a litany of villainous characters like Honest John the Fox, Stromboli and the Coachman.
A lot of critics have criticized the film over its blend of CGI and live action and have called it soulless and unnecessary. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. This film isn’t perfect but, what film is?
Zemeckis showcases some of his best visual magic tricks with some of the most entertaining characters we have seen in a while. Honest John (Keegan Michael-Key) is a riot as he flamboyantly skips across the screen with such vivacious vibrance with the most realistic CGI in recent years.
It has the whimsy and charm of earlier Disney films that almost never feels out of place, even if the Chris Pine joke was something sort of bizarre.
Moreover, the film has a deeper message than the 1940 film as the remake implies that being truthful, unselfish and brave is what makes someone real. Throughout the entire film, Pinocchio is objectified and used as a way for the villains to make money.
Honest John attempts to sell him to Stromboli for profit, Stromboli exploits the puppet’s talents for profit and the coachman had plans to sell him to the salt mines as a wooden donkey and make a fortune. His father Gepetto, portrayed earnestly by Tom Hanks, is the only person that saw him as anything more than a means to make a profit and cared about his well-being, which is what made him a real boy and not a vessel for making money.
The film, overall, is a good-natured venture into the soul of who they are and what they are made of. This film does not deserve the hate that it gets and I can bet that it will attain a higher cult status as the years progress.
