Movie Details
Movie: Pinocchio (2022)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hanks, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth
Movie Type: Fantasy/Adventure
Release date: 7 September 2022
IMDB Rating: 5.1/10
Languages: English
Duration: 1h 45m
Trailer
Synopsis
Live remakes of classic Disney animated fairy tales are essentially a separate film chapter. And recently a rather sterile and tiring chapter. Yes, here and there you will find some brisk and properly relaxing remakes (Cinderella, Aladdin), but in most cases, it is a completely routine and unimaginative transfer of fairy tale classics, where a great creative approach is not even expected. For Disney, it is still a fairly profitable safe bet and a simple money factory, where there are no greater ambitions. And now another piece has come out of this dollar factory, a new live version of Pinocchio. However, director classic Robert Zemeckis took charge of this, invited his loyal sidekick from Forrest Gump or The Polar Express Tom Hanks on board, and tried to break his current directorial curse.
For about the hundred and fiftieth time, we get the story of the wooden boy Pinocchio, who is carved by the elderly good man and loner Geppetto, and thanks to a falling star and a fairy, he comes to life and wants him to be a normal boy. And it goes on as we all know. Pinocchio goes on a series of adventures, Jiminy Cricket gets him out of trouble, his dad looks for him… and the viewer gets a little bored because he doesn’t get anything new and refreshing. The new Pinocchio doesn’t differ too much from the classic 1940s animation in terms of story, classic songs, and several visually beautiful and digital attractions… but it won’t do anything to you.
It’s not easy for me to say. Especially for a creator who has Forrest Gump, Back to the Future, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit (we’ll see a funny reference, by the way), but Robert Zemeckis just doesn’t have it anymore. The famous director has a nice vision at first glance and tries to combine a more modern fairy tale with the poetics of the original animation, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well in his hands. The opening with Jiminy Cricket and the birth of Pinocchio still has a rather functional and cute fairy-tale atmosphere, however, as soon as the wooden hero goes to school for the first time, routine boredom begins, in which the title character does stupid things and Cricket keeps falling somewhere.
Yes, it’s nice to watch, there’s always something going on, it goes by quickly, and I wouldn’t have a problem watching my kid’s movie. But at the same time, the film lacks any spark, originality, and playfulness – the attributes Zemeckis was famous for in his golden era. Now, however, it is about a creator who, although he still maintains a nice craft, but at the same time you can see that he has fallen asleep a bit and his train is running a little.
And he’s a bit of a train wreck even when working with tricks. The individual digi animals or the dangerous island look great, but the main character is not exactly a pretty sight. Pinocchio looks ugly and the bet on a mix of 3D animation and at the same time as close as possible to the original did not pay off at all in this case. The boy with a big nose looks awkward in many shots and downright ugly in the dark or the water. I acknowledge that the director wanted to give the fairy-tale icon a certain stylization, but it was not the right step in this direction, and Pinocchio looks very strange next to the other characters.
The new Pinocchio is not a complete mess and still meets the standards of a fairy-tale canape without any problems, which shows a generous budget and the children simply won’t have a hard time with it. It’s just that this x-times elaborated story doesn’t tell you anything anymore, the creators don’t try to move it forward, and when an interesting element (Geppetto’s motive for creating Pinocchio) appears by chance, it’s not developed at all. The songs are passable, the more action-packed passages serve their purpose, Tom Hanks plays his part, but it’s just another unimaginative filling in the current Disney box. And the sad thing is that it is filled without much enthusiasm by the former directing giant.
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