1940’s Pinocchio was one of my favorite movies growing up and maybe one of the more impactful movies I had seen before I expanded my movie-watching scope. I did not realize until this year just how many times this story had been revisited and retold with not much success. I mean in the past 2 years, we received an atrocious Russian adaptation with Pauly Shore, Tom Kenny, and Jon Heder voicing the prominent characters and the somehow lifeless Disney live-action remake with Tom Hanks. But before even those, Guillermo del Toro announced that he was going to make his own adaptation, using stop motion to tell his tale.
I don’t know much about directors but when something comes from the mind of Guillermo del Toro, you could not be slapping a bigger green flag on a project and my gosh was this great. First off, stop motion is by far one of my favorite styles of filmmaking. It is a grueling process to make but when the final product comes out, it is more often than not a masterpiece. This movie feels livelier than any other attempt that I’ve seen.
The casting choices were spot on. Ewan McGregor’s silky-smooth voice is perfect as Jiminy Crickets and David Bradley and Greggory Mann are great as Geppetto and Pinocchio respectively. The songs in this movie are fresh and performed very well by the cast. The tone is more mature than the more family-oriented original and I love that. I’ve made my opinion known on the podcast that if you want to remake a classic, you have to be willing and able to take liberties and not tell the same story again; otherwise, why wouldn’t I just watch the classic I know I already love?
This movie acts as also somewhat of a period piece as a subplot of the film is the rise of fascism with Mussolini in the small Italian town where this story takes place and the war looming and how it has impacted and will impact the characters. I love the themes present, like mortality, war, the bonds between fathers and sons, and more. They flesh out the story and add intriguing layers to a story that has been told many times before.
SPOILER SECTION
I truly hope at this point you have been able to watch this film because I’m going to talk about the actual story now. The movie starts with some backstory as to why Geppetto made Pinocchio and it is legitimately heartbreaking. Geppetto crafts Pinocchio in a drunken rage after losing his son to the senseless violence of war. While the story follows the same basic plot line as the original, del Toro incorporates new ideas like that Pinocchio can “die” if he takes damage (like getting run over by a truck). I mentioned it above about the tone being more mature and the scene of him talking to the spirit of death, voiced by Tilda Swinton, was legit creepy. Make no mistake, the original had its creepy moments but not quite like this. The theme of mortality also gets brought up as Pinocchio can keep coming back to life, but his family are just mortals.
This movie also is able to be emotional in more subtle ways, like how Pinocchio was made to replace Geppetto’s son, but he will never be the same son that Geppetto is looking to replace, and the anger it causes him. As I said in the last section, there is a war going on and there is a threat of Pinocchio being treated like the other real boys and being forced to fight. The Pleasure Island sequence from the original is replaced by a military training camp which I believe fits the story much better while being similarly messed up. The sea beast scene remains and is equally as tense as it was over 80 years ago, especially when you add in the naval mines from the war which is what ultimately does the beast in.
Pinnochio’s transformation from a puppet to a real boy culminates in the mortality theme as Pinnochio has to sacrifice his own immortality to save Gepetto, dying for real in another heartbreaking scene. We get a happy ending though as Jiminy is able to save Pinocchio with the help of the spirit who gave him his first life. This movie is great. Watch it for yourself. I don’t think anyone or anything can top the original but this remake is well worth the watch. The story is great, the performances are great, and it looks amazing.
