It wasn’t that long ago that Disney+ dropped a live action version of its classic animated feature Pinocchio. That said, I have largely forgotten about it by now. In fact, I probably would have continued to not think about it if Netflix hadn’t dropped a new animated version from director Guillermo del Toro. The Pinocchio story is probably in the public domain by now, so it really isn’t that big a deal for anyone to really do their own version. It just can’t be that similar to Disney’s.

This is Guillermo del Toro. No matter what happens, it won’t be like the Disney version.

Set around the time of World War II, kindly Italian woodcarver Geppetto (David Bradley) loses his beloved young son Carlo to a bombing. In a drunken rage, he carves a puppet from a tree that grew out of Carlo’s grave, and as an act of kindness, a Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton) grants life to the puppet, naming it Pinocchio based on the wood it grew out of. The only real objection comes from one Sebastian J Cricket (Ewan McGregor), a wannabe author who had been calling the tree home before Geppetto cut it down to carve a puppet from it. However, the Sprite is able to mollify the Cricket to let the talking bug act as guide to the living puppet. Small problem though: Pinocchio (Gregory Mann), despite being modeled after the late, well-behaved Carlo, is a rambunctious boy who has a lot to learn.

So, much of this so far sounds a lot like the story most Americans probably know about Pinocchio. But from here, it doesn’t really go that route. Yes, his nose grows when he lies and there’s a sea monster, but that’s about all this movie has in common with Disney, and it’s all the better for it. Instead, this Pinocchio runs afoul of local fascist Podesta (Ron Perlman, who is in all of del Toro’s movies) plus the greedy former aristocrat-turned-carnival owner Count Volpe (Christoph Walz). The former wants Pinocchio to be the ultimate soldier. The latter sees him as a means to make a lot of money off a foolish boy who is a little too trusting. Can Pinocchio become the good, real boy he wants to be without really knowing better? Especially since, unlike most people, he can’t really die?

So, that “can’t die” thing at the end of the previous paragraph is probably what makes this story very much a del Toro story. I’ve seen a few movies del Toro has made with child characters in prime roles, and they always seem to involve death and fascists. But this animated feature, done with stop motion animation, has the look of a del Toro story. Both the Wood Sprite and her sister Death (also Swinton) wouldn’t look too out of place in one of del Toro’s Hellboy movies or even Pan’s Labyrinth. And in the end, it seems to be a meditation on life and death, but not in a frightening sort of way. Pinocchio needs to learn about how people are fragile and that life is to be lived with loved ones. Quite frankly, the movie is beautiful for it.

Besides, Cate Blanchett played a monkey for this movie, and Mussolini is voiced by the same actor as Spongebob Squarepants. Between that and the beautiful artistic style, fine acting, and overall wonderful story, this is easily the best Pinocchio of 2022. Then again, I would take a Guillermo del Toro movie over most anything Robert Zemeckis has directed over the past twenty years or so.

Grade: A


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