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Pinocchio Movie Review

Pinocchio is a 2022 musical fantasy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It’s one of the studio’s worst remakes so far.

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“You will always be my real boy“

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This is the year when we will get two Pinocchio movies, but this will undoubtedly be the weaker one. The 1940’s original is not only my favorite Disney film, but it also firmly stays in my top ten films of all time list. So, it was only a matter of time when they would come after my favorite film and here we are with a tarnished version that only serves to remind us of the greatness of the original and nothing else.

This version is around fifteen minutes longer than the first one, so this led to some newly added material. How does this material fare? Not well of course. In fact, all of the additions are so pointless that they pretty much function as filler. The black female friend with a puppet was a totally unnecessary inclusion as she added nothing new to the table. Other additions include some prolonged dialogue that was mostly horrible exposition that is laughable in comparison to the original’s phenomenal minimalist dialogue.

The only thing that I genuinely liked and admired in this remake is the ending itself. I had a hunch that they were going for it, but when they actually did it, I was impressed. Basically, Pinocchio does not get to become a real boy here. He has been real all along, which is a nice message that stays true to the spirit of the original, but updates it for modern times.

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But even that great sequence that is ambiguous and poetic is ruined when you remember that the movie had included the Blue Fairy before. There was no need for her with this new message added. Cynthia Erivo was excellent and her singing was beautiful, but the fairy being black and so many people in this 19^th century Italian town also being black was ludicrous. The studios today are all doing this, so it’s expected, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.

I did like Honest John and Gideon, but none of the villains in the film came even close to their creepy counterparts in the original with Stromboli faring the worst as he’s not menacing at all. They even gave Luke Evans’ the Coachman a new song and it’s obviously total filler. Other songs in the film are basically faithful renditions of the original songs. They are fine, but they don’t have the punch of the previously electric numbers.

Pinocchio himself is fine, though overly goody two shoes in comparison to the first version. Jiminy Cricket is great. Joseph Gordon-Levitt gave him a fantastic voice and the character works despite his somewhat problematic design. But Geppetto doesn’t work at all. The character is never as warm as he should be and Tom Hanks was very bad in the role. He had a terrible year in 2022 with ‘Elvis’ and now Pinocchio. His accent is poor and his whispering was very annoying.

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The only other reason to see this movie besides that ending is for the VFX. The animated characters look good while the overall town, ocean, Pleasure Island and other locations look pleasingly colorful. Again, this is CGI instead of actual Italy, which was frustrating, but at least the movie’s lighting is excellent as it is bright and polished. It’s an audio-visual pleasure, but as is usual for Zemeckis, the movie lacks heart.