pinocchio movie reviews 2022

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Like the titular puppet at its center, “ Pinocchio ” lingers in an existential purgatory. The latest live-action remake of an animated Disney classic occupies an uncomfortable creative middle ground between remaining true to its beloved roots while also aiming to be fresh for modern audiences. Familiar lines share space with snarky one-liners. It’s not just a block of wood, but it’s not a real boy, either.

Robert Zemeckis ’ high-tech reinvention is faithful to the Italian children’s novel source material and the 1940 original film, but it also features new songs and cheeky pop-culture references. (Most of them clang and feel forced, but one is admittedly laugh-out-loud funny). So yes, you get “When You Wish Upon a Star” (which powerhouse Cynthia Erivo now sings as the Blue Fairy), but you also get little meta bits about education, parenting, and the perils of fame. The result is a muddled mixture, offering some moments of exuberance and humor without ever being singular or exceptional.

It certainly makes sense that Zemeckis would want to take on this massive project, though, as director and co-writer with Chris Weitz (“ About a Boy ”). Just as the original “Pinocchio” was groundbreaking in its artistic complexity, Zemeckis has always pushed the possibilities of animation and visual effects, from the dazzling hybrid of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” to his pioneering use of motion capture in “ The Polar Express .” (And, thankfully, technology has evolved since 2004 to keep human characters from looking so terrifyingly rubbery.)

But while there’s a tactile realism to many of the details, this new “Pinocchio” essentially looks entirely animated. This is especially true toward the end of the perky puppet’s journey when he ends up in the mouth of a ferocious sea monster. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, and clearly need the sunny narration of Jiminy Cricket ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt , star of Zemeckis’ “ The Walk ”) to keep us on track.

You know the story—it’s a cautionary tale about staying in school and not becoming a delinquent, or worse, an actor—but here’s a refresher. Tom Hanks is at his folksiest as the kindly woodcarver Gepetto, who just happens to make cuckoo clocks featuring various Disney characters like Dumbo and Maleficent, in an eye-rolling detail. This is a comfy cardigan of a role for Hanks to slip into as he reunites once again with the director of “ Forrest Gump ” and “ Cast Away ,” and between this “ Elvis ,” he seems to be enjoying digging into his intentionally hammy side. It’s a goofy, playful performance. It’s fine.  

One night, after putting the finishing touches on his marionette, whom he names Pinocchio, the lonely Gepetto makes a wish on a star that brings the toy to life. The Blue Fairy whooshes into the workshop and, with a sprinkling of magic dust, tells Pinocchio (voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth ) he can become a real boy if he proves himself “brave, truthful and unselfish.” Erivo is such a majestic sight to behold, you’ll wish there were more of her here—but nope, it’s onto the next thing. Jiminy Cricket is assigned to be his conscience to help him on this mission. But of course, on the way to his first day of school, Pinocchio runs into the fiendish fox “Honest” John, who has other plans for the kid. He’s voiced by Keegan-Michael Key in a performance that’s by far the film’s highlight. He brings the kind of spry delivery and wild, dangerous energy that’s missing elsewhere in this otherwise safe endeavor.

A multitude of adventures ensue, all of which we won’t bore you with here. But they do include a voracious Luke Evans as the Coachman luring children to their doom at the sparkling carnival of controlled chaos that is Pleasure Island. Gone is the illicit thrill of smoking; the new adolescent addiction is being mean to each other on social media! Also: Too much sugar apparently makes kids crazy and want to break stuff, in case you were unaware. The instinct to update an 80-year-old film in such a manner makes sense, but these fixes too often feel empty and add no insight.

As always, the moral of the story is the importance of being honest. Pinocchio learns this through the whole nose-growing fiasco, a crucial element of his journey that strangely plays like a rushed afterthought in this version. In the title role, Ainsworth brings an old-fashioned earnestness that’s almost heightened to the point of self-aware parody. But he’s also stuck overexplaining everything in shrill, frantic fashion by the film’s climactic conclusion, which by then seems totally divorced from the notion of live action. It's just pixels. The score from veteran composer and longtime Zemeckis collaborator Alan Silvestri swells in all the expected, feel-good ways. It’s all very familiar and cozy.

Not to worry, though. If this “Pinocchio” doesn’t work for you, Guillermo del Toro puts his own twisted spin on the classic tale with a stop-motion animation version due out in December. We wouldn’t lie about that sort of thing.

Now playing on Disney+. 

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film Credits

Pinocchio (2022)

Rated PG for peril/scary moments, rude material and some language.

105 minutes

Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Pinocchio (voice)

Tom Hanks as Geppetto

Luke Evans as The Coachman

Cynthia Erivo as Blue Fairy

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket (voice)

Keegan Michael Key as 'Honest' John (voice)

Lorraine Bracco as Sofia the Seagull (voice)

Kyanne Lamaya as Fabiana

Jaquita Ta'le as Sabina (voice)

• Robert Zemeckis

Writer (from the story by)

• Carlo Collodi
• Chris Weitz
• Simon Farnaby

Cinematographer

• Don Burgess
• Jesse Goldsmith
• Alan Silvestri

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A puppet is brought to life by a fairy, who assigns him to lead a virtuous life in order to become a real boy. A puppet is brought to life by a fairy, who assigns him to lead a virtuous life in order to become a real boy. A puppet is brought to life by a fairy, who assigns him to lead a virtuous life in order to become a real boy.

• Robert Zemeckis
• Chris Weitz
• Carlo Collodi
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt
• Benjamin Evan Ainsworth
• 428 User reviews
• 138 Critic reviews
• 38 Metascore
• 1 win & 13 nominations

• Jiminy Cricket

• Signore Rizzi

• Signora Vitelli

• Honest John

• (as Guiseppe Battiston)

• Pleasure Island Troupe
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Geppetto's cuckoo clocks are a collection of Disney characters: Woody and his horse Bullseye from the Toy Story series (starring Tom Hanks ) Donald Duck, Roger Rabbit and his wife Jessica kissing (from Robert Zemeckis 's previous film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) ) Archimedes the Owl (from The Sword in the Stone (1963) ), The Lion King (1994), Princess Aurora and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty (1959) , Dumbo (1941), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The remaining clocks recreate those seen in the original Pinocchio (1940) .
• Goofs When Pinocchio is locked in a cage, he lies to Jiminy Cricket. In one part, he tells Jiminy Cricket he wanted to go to school, which is actually true because he wanted to try out school earlier in the film, despite telling part of the truth, but his nose still grows anyways.

Geppetto : Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight; I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.

• Crazy credits In the beginning, Jiminy Cricket floats by the Disney logo, singing along to the "When You Wish Upon a Star" fanfare, and opens the film. At the end of the film, Jiminy Cricket flies away.
• Connections Featured in AniMat's Crazy Cartoon Cast: Remembering Stephen Hillenburg (2018)
• Soundtracks When He Was Here with Me Music and Lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard Performed by Tom Hanks

User reviews 428

• yusufpiskin
• Sep 8, 2022
• How long is Pinocchio? Powered by Alexa
• September 8, 2022 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Tuscany, Italy
• Walt Disney Pictures
• Depth of Field
• ImageMovers
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $150,000,000 (estimated)

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 45 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital

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Pinocchio Reviews

The pacing is hopelessly unwieldly, with unnecessary deviations from the original film, added characters who don’t really have purpose and do not propel the plot, and new songs that are not up to Disney standards.

Full Review | Oct 26, 2023

Robert Zemeckis’ live-action film has gorgeous, seamless animation and revels in its seductive timelessness.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2023

Pinocchio boasts a more thematically impactful ending than the original but fails to deliver a new version of the famous childhood tale with the same magic and allure of the past.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 25, 2023

The movie doesn’t spark much magic like the original film does & just is very basic..

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

For a film about a wooden boy who wants to become real and learn about what it means to be a person, Pinocchio (2022) is lifeless. Even Hanks, who has spent a good portion of his career playing charming, loveable characters, is bland in this adaptation.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

Go build your own wooden doll. Even that will be more productive than watching this Robert Zemeckis directorial.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 20, 2023

The faithfulness of this film sees it play justified homage to its inspiration, although often at the expense of offering anything particularly worthy of the whole remake.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 9, 2023

A sparkling reimagining of the indelible 1940 Disney classic that manages to pay homage to the original — and to the 1883 Carlos Collodi story that inspired it — while also weaving new layers of magic into the proceedings.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 15, 2023

No strings attached

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 18, 2023

Pinocchio will surely be a hit with families and will primarily be enjoyed by parents and children...However, audiences outside the target demographic will likely find this to be very surface-level and predictably average.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 4, 2023

They allow for some good emotional moments with a story that we've known before. Tom Hands does a good job as Geppetto & leads to the human connection to this story. Some times it feels like to much of a direct copy & doesn't boast for much rewatchability

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 1, 2023

It might not be “Lion King” levels of bad, but it’s certainly “Mulan” levels of hollow and forgettable.

Full Review | Dec 30, 2022

All in all, Pinocchio ends up as a frustrating experience. It never feels like the characters had arcs, even if that’s what the film wants you to believe.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Nov 30, 2022

...manages enough charm, inventiveness, and technical innovation to be worth the effort.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 11, 2022

unlikely to be remembered as the definitive version – just think of how quickly most other Disney remakes have disappeared from public consciousness. However, it is a sincere and polished attempt to walk in the footsteps of a masterpiece.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 18, 2022

For a story about a wooden puppet wanting to become a real boy, Zemeckis’ woeful approach with not-so-deep-fake animation visually destroys the narrative.

Full Review | Oct 3, 2022

"I'm a real boy!" ... and a piece of **** movie.

Full Review | Oct 2, 2022

Pinocchio is bad, but it’s not inventively bad like Cats. It’s boringly bad, neither bold nor unique enough to be bad in a fun way.

Full Review | Oct 1, 2022

This dull recreation of the animated film doesn’t strive for anything more than what was contained in the original version of this film and actually delivers less.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Sep 26, 2022

Disney’s remake of its 1940 animated classic Pinocchio is just as bad as you’ve heard.

Full Review | Sep 24, 2022

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Pinocchio review – Guillermo del Toro’s dark, sombre riff on the Disney-sweet fairytale

The wooden puppet-boy turns fascist in a Mussolini-era, fantasy-horror rework of the classic tale

G uillermo del Toro has contrived a new stop-motion-type animated account of Pinocchio in this austere and dark version of the Carlo Collodi fairytale. Such a thing was badly needed as a corrective to Robert Zemeckis’s disastrous, sickly and sentimental live-action Pinocchio, which also came out this year , featuring Tom Hanks giving a non-vintage performance as Geppetto, the whiskery toymaker.

Del Toro’s version amplifies the psychological nightmare implicit in the story of a sad, childless craftsman in Italy who, in the agonies of grief, creates a puppet that becomes a real boy. When Geppetto’s son dies in an air raid at the end of the first world war, young Pinocchio is the tragic substitute, brought to life by occult forces that are far from Walt Disney sweetness; he is dragooned first into a travelling circus and then finally into the young fascisti.

This Pinocchio riffs on the idea of innocence and guilt in the age of Mussolini: almost like a cross between Frankenstein’s monster and Oskar in Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum. David Bradley voices the old man, Geppetto; Gregory Mann is Pinocchio, Ron Perlman is the fascist Podesta, Christoph Waltz is the carnival master Count Volpe and Ewan McGregor is the quirky conscience-keeper Sebastian J Cricket.

The movie is potent and sombre, though I couldn’t help thinking that the story of a wooden puppet-boy in this stop-motion world where everyone looks like a wooden puppet is somehow extraneous. For me, this version, with its carefully packaged fantasy-horror element, doesn’t have the anarchy and inexplicability of Roberto Benigni/Matteo Garrone’s Pinocchio from two years ago . But it certainly has its moments of poignancy and sadness and McGregor’s droll tones as the longsuffering cricket provide some grace notes of fun.

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• Animation in film
• Guillermo del Toro
• Ewan McGregor
• Ron Perlman
• Christoph Waltz

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‘Pinocchio’ Review: As the Story Grows

This live action and animated reimagining of the classic fairy tale takes too much time relaying its narrative.

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By Amy Nicholson

Surprising that Disney hired two previous directors before handing the strings of its partially-animated “Pinocchio” to Robert Zemeckis, Hollywood’s Geppetto, the creator on a quest to transform pixels into real boys (and girls and Grendels). Under Zemeckis’s attentive eye, Pinocchio’s yellow cap appears made of felt and his white gloves, affectionately hand-knit. When the marionette spirals his head like a pinewood Linda Blair, his joints make a satisfying creak. But boy oh real boy, is the script by Zemeckis and Chris Weitz a lifeless chunk of wood.

The reimagining goes awry in the opening number — not “When You Wish Upon a Star,” the Oscar-winner that ascended to become the company’s signature tune, but a new ballad, “When He Was Here With Me,” sung by Geppetto (Tom Hanks) about his freshly concocted dead son. Someone wished to burden the old whittler with more motivation, and tacked on a dead wife to boot.

This interminable shop sequence is paced so slowly that when a window closes, the image loiters until its latch drops into place. So slowly that when the Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo) freezes a screeching cuckoo clock, it feels like a cruel prank. So slowly that we forget that Hanks is ranked high among the most charming screen performers of all time as he opens his mouth to sing a second unwelcome new song in which he rhymes “Pinocchio” with “Holy Smoke-i-o.” And when Pinocchio (voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) and Jiminy Cricket (voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finally head outside for fresh air, things do not improve.

The key problem is the film’s fear of the original author Carlo Collodi’s theme: that children are raw material inclined to sloth, foolishness and self-serving fibs. (Collodi’s puppet kills the cricket and is haunted by its ghost.) Walt Disney’s 1940 cartoon softened the tyke’s sins to rambunctious naïveté. Now, he’s been flattened out of having a personality at all. His lumpen goodness turns the hot-tempered fairy tale into a dull after-school special about peer pressure, which seems to suggest that Geppetto should have just carved himself a helicopter to parent the boy.

In place of temptation, the film serves up bizarre plot-fillers. Pinocchio learns about taxes and horse dung, meets a love interest (Kyanne Lamaya) and stares blankly at zingers directed toward the modern enticements of social media. (Pleasure Island now includes Contempt Corner where kids wave placards haranguing each other to shut up.) Joy can be found only in Luke Evans’s scary-fun Coachman (now saddled with unnecessary smoke monster minions) and a line where Jiminy seems to comment on the last decades of Zemeckis’s career: “Sure, there are other ways to make a boy — but I don’t think Geppetto gets out much, and I guess it’s just the best he could do with the tools he’s got.”

Pinocchio Rated PG. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Disney+ .

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Pinocchio (2022) Review

08 Sep 2022

Pinocchio (2022)

Once upon a time, Walt Disney Pictures began producing so-called live-action remakes of their animated classics. Beauty And The Beast , The Lion King , The Jungle Book , Aladdin … on it goes, until we forget there was ever such a thing as hand-drawn animation. They’ve been so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Today’s CGI offers the chance for animated characters to look real . Yet it’s all a little mind-scrambling. Italian director Matteo Garrone’s gorgeous, inventive 2019 take on Carlo Collodi’s 1883 book cast a, well, real boy as Pinocchio, with gobsmacking prosthetics that made him genuinely look like he was made of wood. Robert Zemeckis ’ film makes him genuinely look like he’s made of CGI.

Is this a facetious reading? Maybe. Here, Pinocchio is a puppet-sized puppet, just as the original was — a cute, wide-eyed, tiny little thing. And he looks magnificent. It’s incredible work, absolutely the film’s selling point: that iconic wooden boy come to life. Yet it’s not a persuasive enough reason for the film to exist.

The original 1940 film is a quaint, twee affair. Tonally, Zemeckis honours that, with sporadically charming results. His screenplay, written with Chris Weitz (who also worked on Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella ), gently contemporises it here and there, and attempts to add some emotional heft. Tom Hanks ’ Geppetto, while reliably cuddly, is now imbued with some sadness, constructing the puppet not just because he wants a boy, but because he lost one. It’s a sweet, touching idea that alas is never fully explored after that, presumably because Zemeckis can’t properly smuggle a story about a dead kid into his all-singing, all-dancing Pinocchio remake.

Ultimately, it's all a bit flat, and feels like an exercise. It exists because it can.

It all swings back and forth between old and new ideas. Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a fun retread of the original Jiminy Cricket; Keegan-Michael Key is a lively version of the old Honest John; Cynthia Erivo is great but underused as the Blue Fairy. Lorraine Bracco plays a seagull called Sofia, only really here, it seems, to ferry Jiminy around. Luke Evans is a rambunctious version of Pleasure Island’s coachman, with a big new song to sing, Evans giving his lungs a substantial workout.

All of this is… fine. And a bit all over the shop, with an eclectic aesthetic — a Tom Hanks who is real, a CGI puppet that looks real, a CGI cat that doesn’t. Cameos from the likes of Sheila Atim and Jamie Demetriou are so perplexingly brief, you wonder where they’ve gone. But the biggest problem is with the story, which is hard to get right in any case. Collodi’s original was episodic, written and published in instalments, made up as he went along, and every adaptation lurches about pretty erratically. The 1940 film streamlined some things while removing others, leaving unresolved threads, which remains the case here. And it’s hard to invest much in Geppetto and Pinocchio’s relationship when they spend barely any time together.

Ultimately, it’s all a bit flat, and feels like an exercise. It exists because it can. Guillermo del Toro’s darker, political take for Netflix is up next and, however that turns out, it’s been in the works for years and years and is very much a passion project. You’d be hard-pushed to make that claim here.

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Pinocchio (2022), common sense media reviewers.

Frequent peril in live-action/CGI version of classic tale.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Parents must let their kids learn independence but

Pinocchio must learn self-control to turn down tem

Set in Italy, but actors are mostly American and B

As per the original story, Pinocchio gets into man

A male insect accidentally puts his hand on the bo

"Jackass," "H-E-double hockey sticks," "bollocks,"

References to other films, including other Disney

A character in a cuckoo clock drinks a bottle of l

Parents need to know that this live-action/CGI adaptation of Pinocchio is a bit more intense than the animated classic (which itself has some fairly dark moments). Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) is kidnapped, imprisoned, nearly turned into a donkey, and swallowed by a sea monster. One beloved character…

Positive Messages

Parents must let their kids learn independence but also be willing to set aside fears and make sacrifices for them. Humans desire company. Having a conscience means following an internal voice for making decisions and knowing the difference between right and wrong. We can't always do what we want when we want. Jobs can restore pride. Wishes can come true. Greed doesn't pay.

Positive Role Models

Pinocchio must learn self-control to turn down temptations and prove himself brave, truthful, and unselfish. Geppetto is willing to sacrifice everything for the good of his son. Jiminy Cricket takes his job serving as Pinocchio's conscience very seriously. Sofia and Sabina look out for their friends. Some other characters seek profit or pleasure without concern for the consequences. Kids consume large quantities of root beer and candy on Pleasure Island.

Diverse Representations

Set in Italy, but actors are mostly American and British. All speak English. Two main characters are Black women.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

As per the original story, Pinocchio gets into many perilous, life-threatening scenarios on his first day of life. He's kidnapped, imprisoned, nearly turned into a donkey, and swallowed by a sea monster. A beloved character appears to die in one scene. Characters are tossed around, threatened, hit over the head, captured and locked up, set on fire, teased, and enslaved. Villains Stromboli and the Coachman could be scary for young viewers, as could the bad behavior and creepy clown logo of Pleasure Land.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A male insect accidentally puts his hand on the bottom of a female statue and then apologizes. Male and female puppets appear to feel attracted to each other. Girls sing that "real girls like real boys."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"Jackass," "H-E-double hockey sticks," "bollocks," "blimey," "crock," "jeepers," "holy moly," "holy smoke," "two-bit," and taunts like "stupid," "rascal," "twerp," "loser," "idiot," "jerk," "brat," "scum," "party pooper," "goody two-shoes," and "blockhead."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

References to other films, including other Disney products. This remake could inspire interest in other Pinocchio products.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

A character in a cuckoo clock drinks a bottle of liquor.

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this live-action/CGI adaptation of Pinocchio is a bit more intense than the animated classic (which itself has some fairly dark moments). Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) is kidnapped, imprisoned, nearly turned into a donkey, and swallowed by a sea monster. One beloved character appears to die in one scene, and other characters are tossed around, threatened, hit over the head, captured and locked up, set on fire, teased, chased by the sea monster, and enslaved. Some of the situations, evil characters, and bad behavior could prove upsetting for younger or more sensitive viewers. But the messages are solid: Pinocchio must learn to follow his conscience, distinguish right from wrong, resist temptation, and prove himself brave, honest, and unselfish. His maker/dad, Geppetto ( Tom Hanks ), and his minder, Jiminy Cricket ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ), already model these qualities. There are quite a lot of taunts (like "stupid," "loser," "idiot," "jerk," and more) and some teasing. Other language includes "jackass," "H-E-double hockey sticks," "bollocks," "blimey," and "crock." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (16)
• Kids say (14)

Based on 16 parent reviews

Pinocchio sadly disappointed.

What's the story.

Sweet elderly woodcarver Geppetto ( Tom Hanks ) lives alone with his pets and his creations, including a wooden puppet he calls Pinocchio . Before falling asleep one night, he makes a wish upon a star. A fairy ( Cynthia Erivo ) soon appears and grants Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) life and a voice, and she appoints the jaunty insect Jiminy Cricket ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ) to be his conscience and guide. It's up to Pinocchio to prove himself worthy of becoming a full-fledged human boy. Geppetto loves him as a son, but on the day he sends the boy off to school, Pinocchio is tempted by dishonest players with promises of fame and fortune, and he's imprisoned as an act in a traveling puppet show. From there, he continues to follow temptation into other dangerous situations that put his life, and that of his father, in jeopardy.

Is It Any Good?

This retelling of the classic fairy tale boasts an impressive mix of CGI animation and live actors and settings, but the final product feels a little jumbled. Like its many predecessors, this retelling of Pinocchio looks and feels dark in places and could potentially frighten younger viewers. It could also confuse them at points. A full 15-minute intro of Hanks' old man Geppetto talking to his animals and "oddments" in his studio comes across as theatrical and slightly meandering, and it's very different in tone from much of the rest of the action-packed story. Of course, the scene showcases the character and the actor, who is as genuine as always. When he hesitates to send his wooden boy out into the world, holding tight to his tiny gloved hand and fighting back tears, Hanks is surprisingly moving as an animated co-star.

It's always hard to justify setting a film in one country but hiring actors from others to play key roles, as the main cast here has been asked to do in the Italy-set Pinocchio . Accents are all over the place, and some linguistic humor, including use of words like "pedagogy," "flaneur," and "charcuterie," could fly over some heads. Erivo is stunning in her sole scene as the Blue Fairy, starring in one of several memorable musical numbers. Another involves Pinocchio dancing on stage with marionette puppets. Director Zemeckis and team have dropped in some self-congratulatory references, from cuckoo clock characters from other films to inside jokes about actors and agents. These could land differently for different audiences, perhaps like this remake as a whole.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the lessons Pinocchio learns about following his conscience. Where does he go wrong at first? What changes his attitude and determination?

How does self-control play into Pinocchio's learning to do the right thing? Why was this so difficult for him? Have you ever experienced a situation where you were tempted to do something you knew was wrong? How did you handle it?

How does this version of the classic fairy tale compare with others you have read or seen? How is the ending different?

Do you think the tale of Pinocchio is too scary for younger kids? Why, or why not?

How do filmmakers combine animated characters with real actors and settings? Where could you go to find more information about animation technology?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : September 8, 2022
• Cast : Tom Hanks , Benjamin Evan Ainsworth , Joseph Gordon-Levitt
• Director : Robert Zemeckis
• Studio : Disney+
• Genre : Family and Kids
• Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Fairy Tales , Music and Sing-Along , Puppets
• Character Strengths : Self-control
• Run time : 105 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : peril/scary moments, rude material and some language
• Last updated : July 26, 2023

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Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

November 28, 2022 by Matt Rodgers

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio , 2022. 

Directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson Starring David Bradley, Ewan McGregor, Gregory Mann, Christoph Waltz, Ron Perlman, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Finn Wolfhard, Burn Gorman, Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro

A darker version of the classic children’s fairy tale of a wooden puppet that transforms into a real living boy.

There have been so many versions of Carlo Collodi’s little wooden boy carved out for the big screen that even Disney, who’re responsible for what’s arguably the definitive take on the marionette, tasked Robert Zemeckis with chiselling a lifeless replica of their animated classic.

The very notion of sitting through yet another iteration of the story is enough to make you want to throw yourself inside the belly of a whale. That is until you look up and see that the puppet master is Guillermo Del Toro, a filmmaker with his own blend of dark magic, the kind to make even The Blue Fairy take a back seat and allow him to sprinkle it over this oft-told tale. The results are stupendous.

A passion project for years, Del Toro’s Pinocchio has been touted around the studios for what seems like forever, with Netflix finally granting the director’s wish. That amount of persistence should have eased any doubts about what the Academy Award winner had locked away inside his imagination, but from the moment we’re welcomed into this world by Ewan McGregor’s Sebastian J. Cricket, you are immediately struck by just how different this fairy-tale Italy is.

An Up style prologue grounds this story in a sadness that underpins the entire film. That’s not to say that this is a melancholy tale in which Del Toro delights solely in the darker elements, in fact it’s uproarious and infectiously joyous a lot of the time, it’s just that there are real high-stake emotions on show. Nothing about this Pinocchio is hollow.

Ensuring that things aren’t always deeply rooted in the shadows in which Del Toro excels is Ewan McGregor’s performance as our narrator. He’s simply doing the best he can and that’s all you can ask of him. From hilarious to heartfelt, McGregor delivers lines that’ll have you belly-laughing one minute, but wiping away tears the next.

Then there’s our titular puppet, who in all honesty is a bit of an annoying little prick, but that’s where so much of the fun of the character can be found. He’s so oblivious, loveable, and buoyed by a naïve innocence and wide-eyed enthusiasm for everything, that it quickly becomes easy to root for the fella as he crashes though this small-town community. Plus he gets a hell of good song to sing moments after he has come to life, which is one of a few welcome tunes written by Del Toro and his The Shape of Water collaborator Alexander Desplat.

Also helping bring the stop-motion brilliance to life are Tilda Swinton, here adding gravitas as derivations of what we know as the blue fairies, manifested as ethereal all-knowing deities, while Christoph Waltz has fun employing his recognisible flamboyance as Renard, the duplicitous Mussolini obsessed showman, with Cate Blanchett mainly grunting as his put-upon monkey sidekick Spazzatura. David Bradley is also worthy of a mention as Geppetto, the Harry Potter actor doing a lot of the emotional heavy lifting in a role driven by grief. 

Of course none of this would work without the film’s own Gepetto, with Del Toro, directing alongside The Fantastic Mr Fox ‘s Mark Gustafson, bringing to life what’s possibly his richest and most personal movie since Pan’s Labyrinth .

It’s that layered tapestry with which Pinocchio shares quite a few similarities; both are set against the backdrop of conflicts and the danger of the insidious ideologies they bring, with Del Toro’s wooden boy recruited by the junior Italian fascists, while his 2006 fantasy unfolded parallel to the Spanish Civil War; and both also deal with the notion of death as an unavoidable part of our journey, but in such a beautiful and life-affirming way. 

Additionally Del Toro cannot help himself when it comes to stitching in some horror elements, imbuing the film with a duality that ensures it will strike a chord with the grown-ups, but not alienate or completely scare older kids. Case-in-point is the birth of Pinocchio , in which he assembled like a Frankenstein’s monster, before emerging from the darker recesses of Gepetto’s workshop as a kind of contorted J-horror nightmare. The youngsters will laugh as his head spins around, those who’ve danced through Del Toro’s imagination before will know exactly what he’s doing. 

Existing in a world that feels as though it could be found within the pages of a book gathering dust on the shelves of the Crimson Peak mansion, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio is a lived-in stop-motion fable that breathes new life into rotten wood, meditating on all that’s unique about the finite amount of time we’re given, of which two hours of yours is worth spending with this truly magnificent creation.

Flickering Myth Rating   – Film ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Matt Rodgers –  Follow me on Twitter

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Screen Rant

Guillermo del toro's pinocchio review: stunningly realized stop-motion animation.

Pinocchio rewards rewatches and further thought, and will likely take some time to tease out fully from its deceptively simple narrative.

In a year of multiple Pinocchio movies, it may have been necessary to officially call this one Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio , but it is also apt - the Mexican auteur's signature is all over it. From the story's fantasy elements to the protagonist's similarity to Frankenstein's monster, it's obvious what drew him to the material, and the stunning craftwork of the stop-motion animation makes clear why he would want to tell it in this way. He's a natural fit for both subject and medium, and it's possible to focus solely on the artistry and come out enamored. But this retelling also makes a few key adaptational choices that fundamentally change how the story works; what once held a lesson for children, namely boys, now addresses their parents, namely fathers. Pinocchio is bound to make an impact by sheer force of filmmaking, but whether the emotion of it fully lands might depend in part on whether the viewer identifies more as parent or child.

Narrated by the soothing tones of Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor), Pinocchio opens with a prologue destined for tragedy. In WWI-era Italy, Gepetto (David Bradley) is happy, respected, and devoted to his perfectly lovely son, Carlo (Gregory Mann). Then, in a war-related stroke of bad luck, the boy is killed, and the poor woodcarver breaks. Years pass, until one night, in a drunken fury, Geppetto determines to bring him back. He fells the pine tree planted in Carlo's honor (where the cricket narrator had just taken up residence) and begins to fashion it into a marionette facsimile of his lost child. Muttering that he'll finish the puppet in the morning, he passes out, and as he sleeps, the Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton) appears. Having watched the grieving man and taken pity on him, she conjures life into Geppetto's creation, and charges Sebastian (self-identified as " homeowner ") with guiding him on the path to goodness. This last part is the one that everyone knows, but the differences in how it comes to pass are important.

Related: Wendell & Wild Review: Ambitious Stop-Motion Movie Is Creepy Family Fun

In this adaptation, no one but the Wood Sprite really wanted Pinocchio (Mann) to live - Geppetto awakens to find his puppet has become a gleeful, destructive whirlwind, and is terrified. Cricket agrees to be his conscience only after he is promised a wish for his troubles. Pinocchio himself is visibly crude, displaying his otherness in a way that establishes him as part of del Toro's canon of monsters, and the townspeople react to him with fear and rejection. When the shock fades, however, all who encounter him see Pinocchio as what he could be, rather than who he is: a cash cow for the conniving carnie Count Volpe (Christoph Waltz); an unkillable soldier for the town's fascist Podestà (Ron Perlman); and, for Geppetto, Carlo's second coming. But even when he tries to adopt those guises, always a short-lived endeavor, the puppet cannot be anything but who he is. What he yearns for most of all, even more than becoming a " real boy, " is to be loved and accepted.

The journey of moral growth, then, is really Geppetto's, and just as the original story exemplified bad behavior in boys, del Toro sets his sights on bad fathers. Volpe and the Podestà are two examples, and not only through their relationships with Pinocchio. The showman has adopted a monkey named Spazzatura (Cate Blanchett - yes, really) , which, tellingly, is the Italian word for garbage. He abuses Spazzatura, both physically and verbally, while sprinkling in just enough praise to turn his approval into an addiction. Podestà has a son of his own, Candlewick (Finn Wolfhard), whose name also becomes an expression of parental cruelty. The fascist prefect is exacting in his attempt to mold his son in his own image, an ideal Candlewick could never measure up to even if it suited him. Both Spazzatura and Candlewick regard Pinocchio, the apple of their fathers' eyes, with intense jealousy, and the scars of their parental relationships threaten to consume them.

The milieu becomes crucial to this reading. Fascism as an ideology is presented as a warped form of paternalism, with Italy the " Fatherland " and its male citizens its " sons. " As the Podestà (a former blacksmith) hammers Candlewick into shape, so Benito Mussolini warps his country. Religion is a key presence here as well - Geppetto and Carlo were working on the town church's massive crucifix when the boy died, and, until Pinocchio came into the picture, it was left unfinished. The unruly puppet is deployed for some quality social critique in both the political and religious arenas, but Jesus as a symbol is important in a more sincere way. Unlike the priest (how does one address priests, again?), he is a son that people look to for guidance, and this is ultimately what del Toro's film teaches its audience. A good father sees his son not as something to be changed according to their wishes or desires, but as someone to learn from and, inevitably, change for.

This, of course, is a fraction of what there is to say about del Toro's new film . It rewards rewatches and further thought, and will likely take some time to tease out fully from its deceptively simple narrative. But, one's experience in the moment is dependent in part on how strongly one identifies with Geppetto, and with the movie's explorations of death and grief. Some will classify Pinocchio a deeply moving masterwork; others an interesting, supremely made, and ultimately sweet take on a well-known classic. Either way, it is a lovely piece of work from one of cinema's pre-eminent artists, and that is always something to be thankful for.

More: My Father’s Dragon Review: Gorgeous Animated Movie Runs On Empathy

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio debuts on Netflix Friday, December 9 after a limited theatrical run. The film is 117 minutes long and is rated PG for dark thematic material, violence, peril, some rude humor and brief smoking.

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• DVD & Streaming

Pinocchio (2022)

• Animation , Comedy , Kids , Musical , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket (voice); Tom Hanks as Geppetto; Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Pinocchio (voice); Lorraine Bracco as Sofia (voice); Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John (voice); Giuseppe Battiston as Stromboli; Luke Evans as The Coachman; Lewin Lloyd as Lampwick; Kyanne Lamaya as Fabiana; Cynthia Erivo as the Blue Fairy

Home Release Date

• September 8, 2022
• Robert Zemeckis

Distributor

Movie review.

When Geppetto pines for his lost son, he does so somewhat literally.

How long he’s worked on his little wooden boy—painstakingly carving him from blocks of pine—it’s hard to say. Even Geppetto himself might not know. But chip by chip, shave by shave, he’s pulled a puppet from the wood, one that Geppetto thinks looks a little like his own dearly departed child—even if his cat, Figaro, disagrees.

“Happily ever after was never meant to be,” he sighs, making some final adjustments. “If only this could be more than a memory.”

And then Geppetto’s done, doing his best to push the sadness away. This, after all, is a happy occasion. And Pinocchio—so named because he’s made out of pine—is a happy creation.

“This is why I gave you a smile,” he tells the puppet. “So you will always be happy.”

Jiminy Cricket—an impoverished insect who just stopped in to warm himself up—watches this small family drama unfold from a shelf. He watches Geppetto prepare for bed. And then the old man sees a “wishing star.” The carpenter makes his wish and refuses to say what it is.

“If I was to tell you,” he says to Figaro, “you would think I was—”

His thought is interrupted by a cuckoo clock. And so Geppetto snuggles under his blankets as Jiminy curls up on his shelf.

But lo, around midnight, the cricket gets startled awake by a strange, blue light—a beam of blue radiance that pounds against the picture of Geppetto’s lost little boy. But the light finds no way past the glass in the frame, and—by accident or design—the blue beam deflects, pouring all its magic into the wooden puppet.

For magic this is. Powerful magic. Disney magic. Pinocchio is no longer a puppet: He talks. He walks. And after a short talk with the Blue Fairy (originator of said beam of magic), he has one simple ambition: To make his creator—his father —proud.

He might need a little help with that. A little, six-legged, top-hatted help.

Positive Elements

The Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio that he must pass an ordeal to become a real boy and “prove that you are brave, truthful and unselfish.” But honestly, the wooden waif starts off with some good traits right from the block.

First, Pinocchio really does want to make Geppetto proud. Often, even when he makes bad decisions, that core motivation remains. He ultimately proves to be brave and unselfish, too. And while Pinocchio’s nose does grow from fibbing, at least some of those lies he tells for an altogether different purpose—needing a longer schnoz to make an escape. 

And while he runs across many terrible people in his adventures, he stumbles on a couple of good ones, too. Fabiana, a kindly puppeteer, helps Pinocchio when he’s in the clutches of Stromboli, a dastardly and greedy entertainment mogul. A kindly seagull named Sofia chauffeurs both Pinocchio and Jiminy when the plot requires. And, of course, Geppetto is a loving, giving, devoted father—one who makes some tremendous sacrifices when he learns that Pinocchio is in danger.

As was the case in the original 1940 animated classic, this version of Pinocchio often illustrates how boys and girls ought not to behave. Pleasure Island offers attractions such as “Contempt Corner” (where revelers are encouraged to hurl insults) and “Degrade School” (free bricks are available outside to break windows). “Sugar Mountain” offers a gluttonous thrill ride, where candy can be scooped right off the mountainside, and “Shop ‘n’ Lift” allows consumers to just take whatever they want.

“No one is ever going to tell you no ” at Pleasure Island, Pinocchio is told—which tells viewers that, sometimes, no is a very important word in deed.

The new Pinocchio adds a few lessons that weren’t in the original, too. When the duplicitous fox Honest John pushes Pinocchio to Stromboli’s puppet show, he couches it in very 21 st -century temptations for fame, promising Pinocchio he could be not just an actor: He could be an influencer .

“I want to be real!” Pinocchio tells Honest John.

“Why, to be famous is to be real!” Honest John insists. “Until then, you’re just a nobody.”

In a similar vein, Pinocchio’s trip to Pleasure Island isn’t the product of being tempted by all the bad stuff there. Instead, it’s a lesson in peer pressure. In a song, Pinocchio is told to not be a “party pooper—you’ll ruin it for everyone!” So reluctantly, Pinocchio agrees to go.

Spiritual Elements

Geppetto clasps his hands as he makes his wish—as if praying to that wishing star. The Blue Fairy who answers his wish is, of course, a magical creature with some very serious powers.

Children are transformed into donkeys and are gathered up by what would appear to be supernatural monsters. And while it’s played as a joke, Pinocchio becomes a big believer in the power of “positive thinking.”

Sexual Content

The Blue Fairy wonders why Geppetto made a boy out of wood. “Well, sure, there are other ways to make a boy, but I don’t think Geppetto gets out much,” Jiminy Cricket tells her.

Pinocchio innocently fancies a dainty ballerina marionette. Another marionette—this one a can-can dancer—thrusts her rear in Pinocchio’s face. (The can-can dance is far less suggestive, though, than the one found in the 1940 cartoon.) Jiminy rests his arm on the bustle of a small wooden sculpture. (“Pardon me,” he says, in a scene repeat from the original.)

Violent Content

The film is replete with slapstick humor—including gags taken straight from the original as well as some new ones. Rarely does anyone get seriously injured, though, other than when Honest John and Gideon are knocked out courtesy a large sledgehammer.

That said, some scenes can get pretty scary.

Stromboli literally throws Pinocchio into a bird cage and leaves him to languish there. And at Pleasure Island—where little boys and girls are turned into donkeys and sent off to the salt mines—the Coachman collects these newly transformed critters with the help of some frightening “vapor monsters.”

The most frightening creature, though, might just be Monstro—no longer a mere whale, but a sea monster sporting teeth and tentacles and sail-shaped fins. (It looks a little like a whale mixed with a prehistoric mosasaurus, with a bit of octopus thrown in.) He swallows our heroes whole, and their escape is quite perilous. Indeed, it appears for a bit that one character doesn’t survive.

Pinocchio’s feet move quite rapidly, and they nearly burn down a stage at one point (because of the friction they cause). Someone is hit with a firework, setting his rear on fire and necessitating a dunk in water. A cuckoo clock features a woman spanking a child—a gag pulled from the original 1940 film. In this version, though, an apparent police officer is added, and he prods the woman as she spanks.

We know that both Geppetto’s wife and son died somehow, but we don’t know how.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear two British profanities (“b–locks” and “bloody”). When Jiminy sees something amiss happen on Pleasure Island, he exclaims, “What the cuss is that all about?” And when Lampwick, Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island pal, messes up a billiards shot, he says “ap-cray,” the pig Latin version of the vulgarity “crap.”

Lampwick also repeats a line from the original 1940 cartoon involving the word “jackass” (used literally here, as Lampwick himself morphs into a donkey.) When Jiminy arrives at Pleasure Island, he says it’s as if he was “dropped into h-e-double hockey sticks.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

A cuckoo clock depicts a man drinking from a bottle marked “XXX.” Root beer and sarsaparilla are served liberally on Pleasure Island. While both drinks are non-alcoholic, of course, their presence there is meant to feel edgy and hedonistic.

Other Negative Elements

Pinocchio closely examines a pile of feces during his first day outside. Flies buzz around the pile, and Pinocchio makes a face when he smells it. He appears close to touching it, too, but we don’t see him make contact.

When he and Geppetto are stuck inside Monstro, Geppetto says that escape seems difficult. “It looks to me like everything comes in, but nothing goes out—except the other way, presumably, but that’s not a good option.”

[ Spoiler Warning ] Early on, Pinocchio actually makes it to school n this version of Pinocchio—and had he been allowed to stay, this would’ve been a significantly shorter movie. Instead, the school master literally throws him out, telling him that school is meant for “real” boys and girls.

Not every Disney classic needs a remake.

Many consider 1940’s Pinocchio to be the greatest movie Disney ever made. Ambitious, resonant, filled with beautiful art and memorable songs, it rates a perfect 100% “freshness” rating on Rotten Tomatoes .

I can pretty much guarantee the latest Pinocchio won’t come near that acclaim. Director Robert Zemeskis takes a timeless bit of art and turns it into an of-the-moment muddle, filled with lots of winks and nods but not much heart. Both Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket look a little creepy in CGI, and neither Tom Hanks (who stars as Geppetto), nor Cynthia Erivo (who sings a beautiful version of “When You Wish Upon a Star”), nor the sometimes delightful visuals can help this film find its footing.

It feels, if you pardon the pun, a bit wooden.

It also excises, in some ways, the whole point of Pinocchio . The story is, and has always been, a story of transformation—an exploration of what it means to be not just a real boy, but a good person . That goodness is hard-earned in most tellings, a product of difficult lessons gleaned from a difficult world. Here, Pinocchio starts off good and changes very little. This isn’t about learning hard lessons: It’s about self-acceptance—an oh-so-21 st -century moral. And in embracing that temporal ethos, this version of Pinocchio loses much of the original’s real, resonant oomph. 

But if the new Pinocchio doesn’t reach its much-beloved predecessor, it still has merit.

Yes, Zemeskis swaps out a message of change for a message of acceptance. But there’s real value in that message, too. One could take away from the original Pinocchio that love must be earned. And, of course, that’s not true. We didn’t earn God’s love. Our kids don’t earn our love. We love them for who they are, even as we encourage them to grow.

This version of Pinocchio might be especially resonant for kids who’ve been adopted, but any child who has felt the sting of a parent’s disappointment may find something to embrace here. “I might have made you think I wanted somebody else,” Geppetto tells Pinocchio. “But it was you .”

And while the language can be a bit coarse and the bathroom humor unfortunate, the film sticks closely to its PG rating, too. In fact, many of its content issues actually come directly from the G-rated 1940 original—a reminder that while we may sometimes think that our entertainment is on a continual downward slide, the reality can sometimes be more complex.

No, the new Pinocchio will not become a classic—watched by generations to come. But when it comes to finding a decent watch for families in this generation, you could do a lot worse.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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PINOCCHIO (2022)

"marred by woke post-modernism".

What You Need To Know:

Miscellaneous Immorality: Title character is sometimes fooled by dishonesty, tall tales and fame, but he starts to grow a conscience that helps him to do the right thing, plus the Blue Fairy breaks her promise to Pinocchio and a school teacher says Pinocchio can’t attend school because he’s not a “real boy,” which seems to be another politically correct, transgender message, this time against conservatives and parents who don’t want government teachers to teach transgender politics to schoolchildren.

More Detail:

PINOCCHIO is a live-action remake of Disney’s classic 1940 animated cartoon musical about a living puppet who must prove himself morally worthy to be a real boy. Streaming on Disney+, this new live action PINOCCHIO is well produced and entertaining, with a nice performance by Tom Hanks as the puppet-maker, Geppetto, but it lacks the charm, humor and power of the original and dilutes the original movie’s redemptive ending and other parts of the story to conform to today’s woke, post-modern, politically correct sensibilities.

The live action version opens similarly to the original cartoon, with Jiminy Cricket narrating the story. Years ago, Jiminy Cricket was a vagabond who traveled from home to home trying to find shelter.

One cold night, he arrives in a small Italian village. No one is around and the only light is a light coming from the local, widowed clock maker, Geppetto. The fire inside is warm and inviting. So, Jiminy Cricket slips under the door, where he finds Geppetto putting the finishing touches on a wooden puppet of a little boy. The puppet matches a portrait of Geppetto’s dead son.

Before going to bed, Geppetto opens the bedroom window and sees the wishing star high in the sky. He wishes upon the star that Pinocchio would become a real, live boy.

After Geppetto, his cat Figaro and his goldfish Cleo fall asleep, the Blue Fairy flies into the house and sings, “When You Wish Upon a Star.” She then uses her magic wand to make Pinocchio a talking, living puppet. She also appoints Jiminy Cricket to be Pinocchio’s conscience and promises Pinocchio he will become a real boy if he is truthful, brave and unselfish.

However, when Pinocchio tries to go to school, he’s waylaid by a crafty red fox named Honest John. Honest John convinces Pinocchio to achieve success and fame by becoming an actor instead of going to school like his father told him to do.

This leads to all sorts of bad situations for Pinocchio. Meanwhile, Geppetto goes looking for him.

Disney’s original animated comedy fantasy, PINOCCHIO, contains wishful thinking and mentions of Fate guiding one’s life and wishing upon a star. This problem is rescued by the movie’s morally uplifting discussions of doing the right thing, learning to tell the difference between right and wrong, love, honesty, bravery, and acting unselfishly. It’s also rescued by the movie’s striking, emotionally powerful redemptive climax, which contains a theme of death, resurrection, reward, and transformation.

This live-action remake contains the parts about Fate and wishing upon a star. It also stresses truth, honesty, bravery, caring for others, being unselfish, and doing the right thing. However, it changes and thus weakens the story’s redemptive ending. Sadly, because of this, Disney’s live action PINOCCHIO has no theme of death, resurrection and reward, though it does have a theme of transformation. The transformation here, however, is weakened and lacks the wonderful power of the original movie’s ending.

That said, this live action PINOCCHIO movie is well produced and entertaining, up to a point. It has some comedy, adventure and jeopardy. However, the story and plot itself lack the charm, details, humor, and power of the original animated movie. For example, the detailed bits of comedy in the first half hour of remake pale in comparison to the wonderfully edited bits of comedy in the original. Also, the songs in the remake seem over-produced and not as enjoyable. Finally, the remake has an unnecessary, distasteful joke about horse dung.

Ultimately, this PINOCCHIO diminishes the original story by inserting woke, post-modern, politically correct, deceitful, leftist, transgender sensibilities and a broken promise. For example, the Blue Fairy breaks her promise to turn Pinocchio into a real boy. Also, the ending strongly implies that a child can just declare themselves to be a real boy, even if the facts prove otherwise. By eliminating a real death, resurrection and transformation, this PINOCCHIO just wastes the viewer’s time.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

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Only One Disney Animated Movie Has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

Pinocchio is the only Disney animated flick to earn that top score on Rotten Tomatoes. What's the secret to its legacy?

In its storied 100-year history, the House of Mouse has given us some of entertainment's most iconic and timeless animated features. The late 1930s and early 1940s were arguably the company's first Golden Era, as that period also represented the birth of animation as a new feature film medium. While it can be difficult to name one movie from those early years as the best, Rotten Tomatoes has done just that.

Per the review aggregator, 100% of critics named the original 1940 Pinocchio "certified fresh." It is the only Disney animated movie to earn the top score. The audience rating stands at a similarly strong 73%. That's not bad, considering Pinocchio was only Disney's second-ever animated film. So why the perfect 100? Is the love driven by nostalgia? Or does the movie still hold up today, more than eight decades after its release? Disney wasn't afraid to go dark either in those early days, with Pinocchio a particularly dark standout. Let's look at all the reasons why this classic earned that perfect 100% rating .

Why Disney's Pinocchio Has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

Everyone knows the story of Pinocchio . But in case you don't, here's a spoiler warning for the 84-year-old flick. Based on a novel written in 1880s Italy, the movie tells the tale of the titular puppet Pinocchio crafted by the woodcarver Geppetto. When Geppetto wishes for his creation to come to life, the Blue Fairy obliges and makes Pinocchio a real boy. Along the way, Pinocchio must prove he deserves to be real by learning the difference between right and wrong. To help him on that journey is Jiminy Cricket, acting as the puppet boy's conscience.

Pinocchio 's legacy has stood for decades and influenced hundreds of projects, both Disney and otherwise . The "real boy" element is one of the best-known tropes in animation and has been referenced countless times in other media. Jiminy Cricket's song " When You Wish Upon a Star " even became Disney's official theme music, playing over the famous castle shot that opens every movie.

Beyond that, Pinocchio is a great, wholesome film about a kid learning to do good in the world. Maybe that legacy meant it shouldn't fall victim to the Disney live-action reboot curse. But it did in 2022, and that Tom Hanks version sits at a brutal 28% on Rotten Tomatoes. To rub salt in the wound, Guillermo del Toro released his adaptation two months after that reboot, and his version almost matches the original at 96%. The character from the original book (not Disney's version) has also appeared in at least 20 other movies with varying degrees of quality. But none compare to the animated original.

Pinocchio is not without its share of dark themes . The concept of a puppet coming to life lends itself well to horror, which is likely why Pinocchio will be a part of the new Poohniverse . The movie also touches on kidnapping when Honest John tricks the puppet boy into ditching school and sells him to be enslaved by the puppet master, Stromboli.

Why exactly does this newly-animate creature immediately need education anyway? He also winds up (pun intended) on the innuendo-laden Pleasure Island to participate in drinking, smoking, and fighting with other delinquent kids. The island apparently curses the kids, too, and turns them all into donkeys before they're sold into servitude again. Pinocchio manages to escape the donkey transformation, just to learn Geppetto went to Pleasure Island and was swallowed by a whale. Pinocchio frees Geppetto, though he dies in the process. However, the Blue Fairy rewards Pinocchio's sacrifice by making him a permanent human boy. Family friendly kids movie, right?

Pinocchio vs. the Golden Age Disney Films

It's clear that Disney was still trying to figure out how to make children's animation in the 1940s . They've since dialed back the death, human trafficking, narcotics, and mutant transformations just a bit. Pinocchio wasn't exactly an outlier in its dark themes. Dumbo's mother was locked up, and the baby elephant dealt with that pain by getting drunk and hallucinating. Bambi's mother died, too, as did Snow White's parents in Disney's very first movie . The "dead parents" trope remains perhaps Disney's greatest hallmark.

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Fantasia was among the first to combine live-action and animation through an anthology format. The final vignette, Night on Bald Mountain , introduced us to the demon Chernabog and his evil spirits in arguably the single darkest Disney animation ever produced. Morbid as it was, that animation from 1940 is more detailed and fluid than some of what we have today. Disney went dark all around in those early days to great success. No project from that Golden Era earned less than a 90% critical consensus. Pinocchio tops them all because humanity is at its core and centers on the basic tenet of good vs. evil.

Disney's Other Near-Perfect Movies

While Pinocchio is believed to be Disney's only animated perfect Rotten Tomatoes-rated feature , several others have almost hit the mark. The rest of those first Golden Era films range between 95% and 97%. Bambi is the lone outlier with a still impressive 91%. In the decades that followed, Cinderella, 101 Dalmatians, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Zootopia, Aladdin, and Moana all scored 95% and above.

Many more, including Frozen, Big Hero 6, The Little Mermaid, Encanto, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast, achieved at least 90%. Disney has enjoyed highly positive critical reception for most of its history, with only 15 movies in total scoring below 70%. The record at the other end of the scale is held by 2005's Chicken Little —Disney's first fully CGI animated project—at a dim 36%.

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Disney is perhaps the greatest animation studio there is, and Pinocchio is one of the films that best exemplifies this. It came at the dawn of animated movies, so there were still a lot of kinks to work out. But its basic story of a child trying to do what is right resonated with audiences at the time and laid the groundwork for every similar tale. Pinocchio is Disney at its best, and it's earned that perfect 100%. The original Pinocchio is streaming now on Disney+ .