My Review of "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio"

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio has recently come out exclusively streaming on Netflix. There's a lot of controversy about this movie but then again anything reimagined by Guillermo del Toro is going to get some sort of buzz. He has an eye for the macabre and this little film is no stranger to that fact.

The movie starts out a little differently. Here we build on the environment that Pinocchio will be growing up into. Geppetto already has a wonderful life with his real life son Carlo. This movie does a great job in illustrating just how great Geppetto's life was when Carlo was around. It makes everything all the more understanding when he loses Carlo during the World War.

Yes everyone this movie is taking place during the World Wars. It takes place in a fascist Italy and Mussolini is still the leader of the country. Making this movie that much more interesting.

When Geppetto loses Carlo he goes into a huge depression and out of huge grief he creates Pinocchio. Of course there's a lot of magic involved but it's done in a slightly different way to the Disney version that we're used to. It doesn't fall too far off that Disney main story though.

The movie really comes alive when Pinocchio comes alive. I'd hope so too since it is his movie after all. Though the direction of the movie is very different. The whole movie is animated in with a stop motion look and feel to it. Everything looks so polished that these models could be clay characters. They had a lot of fun with the animated characters in stop motion. There's this extra character added to them because of this look especially with Pinocchio in particular.

His character is whimsical in nature because of he has so much joy of being alive. This is in stark contrast to the depressive state of Geppetto. Though the introduction of Pinocchio's character looks more like a scary monster movie than a fun cartoon. This is where the macabre that we explained earlier comes in. There is a lot of those elements sprinkled throughout this movie and in a certain light or perspective this movie could easily be a horror movie.

There are many themes throughout this movie. I think the main subject matter of the film is the concept of acceptance. Here all of the characters go through a multitude of different types of acceptance throughout their character arcs. For example, Geppetto has to accept the death of his son Carlos as well as accept his new son Pinocchio for who he is. It's a coming of age story for not only Pinocchio but Geppetto as well.

This movie also sprinkles different concepts throughout the movie as well. The concept of sneaky people taking advantage as soon as they can comes up multiple times. Although everyone fears Pinocchio for being different this fear quickly dissipates when people can see what they can use him for. We still have the famous circus storyline in this movie but we also have a military aspect added to the mix.

Those that particularly like animated movies like Caroline, Nightmare before Christmas and Kubo and the Two Strings will love this movie. It's kind of right down that dark alley. I really think this should be a genre of its own because they have such a similar tone.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie more than I anticipated. It wasn't too different from what I was expecting because I'm familiar with Guillermo del Toro's body of work. He has a certain vision and this movie stuck to it. I just don't think this movie is for everyone. Though I still think I will have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. It was masterfully done. Those that are looking for yet another dark stop motion animated feature should check this one out.