Pinocchio Review: A cursed live-action Disney remake meets Disney Plus

Though some of Disney’s live-action remakes of its big-budget hand-drawn animated classics have done well financially, nearly all have struggled creatively. David Lowery is the only director to have cracked the code: his tender 2016 remake Peter’s dragon makes an old film feel fresh and new by telling a story that actually is is fresh and new. Unfortunately remakes of Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and others had less room to stretch. When people pay to see a remake of a popular Disney favorite, they expect to see the greatest hits rerun, from the songs to the defining moments. So audiences can only expect so much new material. And it often comes in small in-between moments, like the bit in 2019 Lion King where grown-up Simba kicks up a clump of leaves that float in the breeze and eventually land in front of shriveled old Mandrill Rafiki – after a pit stop in a ball of giraffe dung.

Regrettably and inexplicably, animal excrement also features prominently in Disney’s latest self-cannibalization installment, Robert Zemeckis’ remake of the 1940 classic Pinocchio. Like the animated version, the live-action remake straight to Disney Plus tells the story of a wooden puppet (a CG creation voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) brought to life by a magical blue fairy (Cynthia Erivo) who sends him on a journey to become fully human by exemplifying the qualities of bravery, truthfulness and selflessness.

As in the original film (and Carlo Collodi’s adapted children’s book), Pinocchio meets humanized animals like Jiminy Cricket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Honest John the Fox (Keegan-Michael Key). There’s a cruel, mustache-wearing impresario named Stromboli (Giuseppe Battiston), the hallucinatory Pleasure Island theme park, and other recognizable elements of the classic. Zemeckis has more than enough experience combining live actors and digital technology with previous films such as The Polar Express

Image: Disney Enterprises

Naked-Pinocchio gets off to a shaky start, skipping past “When You Wish Upon a Star,” perhaps the most important Disney song of all time. Where Jiminy Cricket depicts it as a quiet, insightful moment in the original 2022 film Pinocchio shortens it and gives the shorter version to the Blue Fairy. Erivo has a truly phenomenal voice, as evidenced by her Tony-winning role on the Broadway version of The colour purple. Your rendition of the abridged classic is lovely. But handing the song over to her makes Jiminy a less interesting character, far less present and passionate — which is a problem since he’s meant to illustrate Pinocchio’s humanity, even though neither of them are human.

The changes are piling up. Unlike in the animated film Geppetto (Tom Hanks, whose questionable Italian accent doesn’t deserve a future in Memes à la his elvis Performance) offers a clumsy explanation of why a kindly old woodcarver like himself would create a boyish puppet. He also explains why he refuses to sell his dead wife’s prized cuckoo clocks – with characters like Rafiki and Simba, Roger Rabbit and Sheriff Woody posing as one of the most painful synergies in film history.

These are answers to questions best left unasked – many of the small details in the original Pinocchio are haunting because they elude any explanation. By carefully spelling out each emotion, Zemeckis and Weitz remove any potential for enigmatic complexity. And while the computer technology that brings Pinocchio to life isn’t nearly as spooky as everything in Zemeckis’ polar expressthis is mitigated by how obviously wrong he is when there is a shot of a human actor “touching” or “holding” the little wooden boy.

Image: Disney Enterprises

The outlines of the story will still be very recognizable to anyone familiar with the animated film or Collodis The Adventures of Pinocchio. However, given that this is a modern film, someone apparently felt that the film should scoff a little at its own flights of fancy. When Pinocchio, being locked in a cage by the evil Stromboli, starts lying and his sticky nose grows, Jiminy says, “A bit on the nose, I’d say.” As Pinocchio recounts his various adventures towards the end of the film, one asks confused figure: “You went through all that Someday?” Simultaneously mimicking a classic and smugly mocking it comes across as stark, as if Zemeckis and co. are afraid of real emotion and determined to shield audiences from any sense of authenticity or sincerity.

This Pinocchio isn’t quite a shot-for-shot remake of the 1940 film, though its sparse additions are confusing in part because they feel so insubstantial. Songs like “Give a Little Whistle” and “Little Wooden Head” were jettisoned in favor of four lifeless new songs by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard. Everyone stops the pace of the story in its tracks. Hanks is initially tasked with two new numbers, singing his way through painful lyrics that rhyme “Pinocchio” with “Holy smokey-o.”

The way Pinocchio is ensnared by the coachman (Luke Evans, who does his best impression of Disney’s animated Captain Hook) and coaxed into going to Pleasure Island by other kids hints at one of this remake’s most inevitable problems: Zemeckis and Co. don’t want it to be as complex as its ancestor. While the 1940s version of Pinocchio isn’t as aggressive and rowdy as his Pleasure Island counterparts, he’s quite willing to engage in bad behavior and aping his cigar-smoking sidekick, Lampwick.

But his naïve, childish selfishness only makes his eventual heroism even more redeeming. In Zemeckis’ version, Pinocchio is initially misled by some uncouth characters, but he’s essentially a good little boy from start to finish, while many of the other characters — particularly some new human characters, like a rowdy headmaster and a friendly one Performers on Stromboli’s touring show, both of whom toss the term “real” like a buzzword, are as hollow as the wood the title character is made of.

Image: Disney Enterprises

Pinocchio isn’t the first Disney remake to move straight to Disney Plus. (mulan debuted on the premium tier of the service.) It’s also not the first Robert Zemeckis film to skip theaters for streaming. (Coincidentally his The witches Remake for HBO Max is the only other serious contender against Pinocchio for its worst movie.) When Disney Plus first launched in 2019, one of its original opening-day films was the Lady and the Tramp Remake that is predictable, lifeless and utterly unforgettable.

The 2022 Pinocchio has its unforgettable moments, but they stand out for the wrong reasons. It will be hard to forget the image of Pinocchio staring at a pile of horse manure and touching it out of curiosity. It’s a crude image in a film that doesn’t otherwise add catalog humor, a gag that’s not in the original and serves no purpose in the remake, and an oddly unnecessary price tag in a film that struggles to contain CG and live-action elements. But maybe all that traces. Pinocchio ’22 is awkward from top to bottom for existing without good reason, so it might as well contain imagery with an equal lack of creative logic.

Pinocchio debuts September 8 on Disney Plus.