By Blake Moren
A&E Page Editor
This review contains spoilers.
The original 1941 “Pinocchio” animated film is among my favorite Disney films. The animation, characters, story and music are all amazing. It is undoubtedly a classic animated film.
The new “Pinocchio” is the latest live-action remake of a Disney animated film. Most of the live-action remakes have received mixed or somewhat negative reviews, with one of the criticisms being that these remakes are shot-for-shot similar to the original film.
Another criticism is that the remakes include unnecessary changes to the storyline, and many of them are dismissed as nothing more than a pointless cash-grab.
I personally do not hate any of these remakes, but I would not consider them “great” by any stretch of the imagination. I consider the 2016 remake of the “The Jungle Book” to be somewhat of an exception.
When the trailer for the remake of “Pinocchio” was shown on social media, it looked very promising to me, however, I was bit cautious due to my low expectations for live-action Disney remakes.
I was even more concerned when the Rotten Tomatoes score was revealed: 27%. The audience score is not any better, when ended up around 32%.
I was genuinely shocked. How could a Disney film with Tom Hanks be terrible? Well…
One positive of the film is that the musical score by Alan Silvestri is really good.
The acting is actually pretty good, as well. Tom Hanks as Geppetto is among the few highlights of the film.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance as Jiminy Cricket is fine; it just sounds like he’s trying to imitate Cliff Edwards, the voice actor for Jiminy in the original animated film.
Keegan-Michael Key’s performance as Honest John is another highlight of the film. Benjamin Evan Ainsworth’s performance as Pinocchio is also pretty good, but the performance is kind of bland.
Cynthia Erivo’s extremely brief appearance as the Blue Fairy is amazing, and her rendition of “”When You Wish Upon a Star” is pretty great too.
The jokes are extremely weak as well; a lot of them go on for way too long. Additionally, the pop culture references are completely out-of-place and cringe-worthy.
In regards to the story changes in this remake, some of them work and most of them feel unnecessary and nonsensical. One of the changes is that Monstro is not a whale, but some kind of sea monster with tentacles. While this sounds interesting on paper, the CGI is so unfinished that any potential tension or fear towards Monstro is made nonexistent.
In my opinion, this is among the biggest problems with the film: the computer-generated imagery, also known as CGI. While it isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, it looks unfinished and strange-looking.
While the original Monstro is still quite frightening, this one is not that scary to me. Besides, the build-up towards Monstro’s appearance is so underwhelming and lazy that I did not feel any fear towards the monstrous sea monster, which leads to another issue.
Why the filmmakers did not use a real puppet for Pinocchio is a mystery to me.
Using a practical, hand-made puppet would have given Pinocchio a far more grounded, realistic and convincing appearance. Instead, he just looks a CGI puppet trying to look like a real puppet. It does not look real at all. In fact, nothing CGI in this film looks convincingly real.
Figaro, the cat, also looks unfinished in terms of visual effects. The CGI ranges from terrible to average, but most of it needs a bit more work.
While the film gives it a great shot, I found it hard to invest into the story. The pacing and flow of the film’s story is best described as jarring.
While Monstro was foreshadowed halfway through the film, the coachman just flies into the story without any buildup, rhyme or reason.
I did find the depiction of Pleasure Island as interesting, though.
One of the things that don’t make much to me is the ending. I won’t spoil the ending, but I legitimately felt confused and insulted by the way the story ended.
In conclusion, almost everything in this film feels lazy and uninspired.
Rating: 2.0 /10