“PINOCCHIO” My rating: C (Disney +)
106 minutes } MPAA rating: PG
Disney’s policy of systematically cannibalizing its animation classics and spewing out new live-action versions hits a wall with “Pinocchio.”
Not even Tom Hanks in front of the camera or Robert Zemeckis behind it can make this blatantly opportunistic effort resonate.
The film does raise some interesting questions, though.
The script of this “Pinocchio” is probably 80 percent faithful to that of the 1940 animated effort…and yet the very things that work in the original fall flat here.
Why? If pressed I’d have to say that traditional cel animation (you know…hand-drawn cartoons) employs its obvious artificiality to mentally and emotionally prepare us for the fairy tale fantastic.
It’s weird, but I find myself responding emotionally to the cartoon (for instance, Geppetto’s heartbreaking longing for a son) when the same scenes, played out with a real actor (Tom Hanks, working to project from behind an Einstein-level ‘stache and wig of exploding hair) feel phony.
Thus the cartoon Figaro the kitten is utterly charming (amazing how the animators captured his cat-ness) while the photo-realistic, CG-generated Figaro of the new film evokes barely a “Meh.”
And don’t even get me started on Jimmy Cricket, a brilliantly conceived character in the original who comes off as grotesquely creepy when rendered in three-dimensional detail. God…that green face! (By the way…that’s Joseph Gordon Levitt providing the insect’s voice…he does a pretty spot-on imitation of Cliff Edwards’ cracker-barrel Americana Jimmy from 1940.)
Zemeckis and co-writer Chris Weitz work a few changes practically guaranteed to raise accusations of wokeness…like casting a black performer (Cynthia Erivo) as the Blue Fairy, giving the puppet master Stromboli a physically handicapped apprentice (Laquita Tale) and turning Pleasure Island from an all-boy environment to one to which naughty girls are enticed as well.
They pay lip service — barely — to the brilliant songs from the original — “When You Wish Upon a Star,” “An Actor’s Life for Me,” “I’ve Got No Strings” — while adding a couple of lackluster new tunes.
Most dismaying of all is that the CG Pinocchio (voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) is impossibly bland. Disney’s original puppet was a much sanitized version of the mischievous imp in Collodi’s book, but this one registers a big zero.
If the new “Pinocchio” is largely underwhelming, it does have a couple of nifty moments. Our wooden hero’s debut performance as the star of a puppet show is very nicely handled, with the evil Stromboli (Giuseppe Battiston) at the helm of a steam-powered Rube Goldberg-ish backstage contraption.
Geppetto’s workshop, with its dozens of synchronized cuckoo clocks (many clever referencing other Disney animated films), is a visual wonderland worth getting lost in.
The conniving Honest John the fox gets terrific voice coverage from Keegan-Michael Key; less effective is Luke Evans as the evil singing Coachman who shanghai’s Pinocchio to Pleasure Island.
And that paradise for bratty kids has been conceived as a sort of anti-Disneyland, complete with “It’s a Small World” boat canal on which our hero cruises the premises.
One benefit of modern streaming technology: You can watch the 2020 “Pinocchio” and then immediately switch over to the 82-year-old original…make up your own mind about which works best.
For me, there’s no contest.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
Very depressing! It was like watching my childhood dismantled minute by minute. No relation to original. No soul!