Continuing their trend of adapting their own content and material, Walt Disney released the live-action remake of Pinocchio on Disney Plus last year. This was one of the first feature-length productions to stream exclusively on Disney Plus. After watching this film, I could see why it did not get a cinematic release.
Giving Disney films a live-action reimaging has had some positives with the recent successes of Beauty And The Beast, Cinderella, The Jungle Book and Aladdin. All of these have either fleshed out their individual stories or seen directors and screenwriters give their own unique interpretation of a classic fairytale.
However, Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation stays so faithful to its predecessor that there’s no room for interpretation. With a patronisingly dumbed-down script, wooden performances from its young lead — Benjamin Evan Ainsworth’s acting was very much limited to how Dick Jones voiced the character in the original animation — its nauseating use of CGI that made this film more animation than live-action and its obsession with pop culture references, even the Blue Fairy couldn’t revive this lifeless film.
This film did have some charming performances from Cynthia Erivo, Luke Evans and newcomer Kyanne Lamaya, but those were fleeting moments in an otherwise lifeless production. Even Tom Hanks underperformed as Geppetto, never finding the right balance between emotional and comedic timing. The script gives Geppetto a much more tragic backstory of having a dead son that is never adequately explored. Pinocchio is made to be a replica of said son, and it is heavily implied that the soul of Geppetto's son is reincarnated in the wooden puppet. Yet this never has any consequences or explores any deeper themes. It's pretty hollow.
If you have seen the original animation, the live-action adaptation follows the name narrative structure — almost scene for scene, word for word. Some new songs are thrown in, but it lacks any new perspective to justify a remake. I have seen Joseph Gordon-Levitt in several films, and at first, I was impressed by how his voice was totally unrecognisable as Jiminy Cricket. It wasn't till I logged this into my Letterboxd diary that I realised. His character was irritating in the film, constantly breaking the fourth wall and narrating events we either just saw or could gather from what had just happened. As well as demonstrating lazy storytelling, this technique failed when others used it much better.
As I mentioned before, this film relies heavily on pop culture references and takes the viewer out of the story almost from the first scene. Instead of being immersed in the world the characters inhabit, we are constantly reminded of the Disney empire and the world beyond. In the opening scenes, there is a moment where all the clocks go off to reveal the characters inside the cuckoo clocks. From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, Toy Story, Dumbo, The Lion King and even Who Framed Rodger - there was even a shoutout to Chris Pine... for some reason.
As a writer, I've worked in pop culture references into my own short films, but it has to fit within the historical context or add something to the overall message/theme of the story. These references did neither, in my opinion, and came across as a vanity flex for Disney with poor attempts at humour.
The worst aspect of this movie was its atrocious ending. Pinocchio's goal has been to become a real boy and prove he has attributes of courage, knowledge and compassion. This version of the child puppet has none of those traits, and instead of sacrificing himself to save his family and being revived, he revives his father with a magic tear. Geppetto tells Pinocchio that despite being a puppet, he has proven himself to be a true boy at heart. As Pinocchio and Geppetto depart for home, Jiminy narrates that stories have been told of Pinocchio becoming a real boy but doesn't confirm them, stressing that Pinocchio has a brave, honest and selfless heart and that he's fully real to his father. Are you kidding?
It was a good thing that this was the end because, by this point, I was done. Despite having beautiful visual effects, this is one of the shallowest adaptations from Disney I've ever seen. It lacked heart, and this was a pointless remake with nothing new to add to the source material.
My rating for Pinocchio (2022) is ★.
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Comments (1)
I honestly struggled to get through the first 20 min so didn’t continue the film. I am a mad fan of Zemeckis’ earlier work and Hanks, but what a shame.