Pinocchio review: A cursed live-action Disney remake hits Disney Plus

Though some of Disney’s big-budget live-action remakes of its hand-drawn animated classics have performed well financially, they’ve almost uniformly struggled creatively. David Lowery is the only director who’s cracked the code: His tender 2016 remake of Pete’s DragonA story that is actually true makes an old film seem fresh. IsIt is fresh and innovative. Remakes are unfortunately not possible. Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the BeastSome had more room while others were restricted in their movements. When people are willing to pay to watch a Disney classic remake, they can expect the most popular songs and memorable moments on repeated loop. The audience can expect only so much new material. This often happens in interstitial bits, as in the 2019 clip. Lion King where the adult Simba kicks up a tuft of leaves that float through the breeze and eventually land in front of the wizened old mandrill Rafiki — after a pit stop in a ball of giraffe dung.

Regretfully and inexplicably, animal excrement also prominently features in Disney’s latest bit of self-cannibalization, Robert Zemeckis’ remake of the 1940 classic Pinocchio. As the animated version, this live-action, straight-to Disney Plus remake is the story about a wooden marionette, a CG creation, voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth. He’s brought to life with the help of a blue fairy (Cynthia Erivo), and embarks on a journey that will allow him to fully become human, demonstrating the qualities of courage, honesty, and selflessness.

As in the original movie (and the Carlo Collodi children’s book it adapts), Pinocchio encounters anthropomorphized animals like Jiminy Cricket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Honest John the fox (Keegan-Michael Key). There’s a cruel, mustachioed impresario named Stromboli (Giuseppe Battiston), the hallucinatory Pleasure Island theme park, and other recognizable elements from the classic. Zemeckis has a lot of experience in mixing live actors and digital tech with films like Polar Express Roger Rabbit: Who is the Framer?. However, the new PinocchioDespite the efforts of Zemeckis, Chris Weitz and their co-writer Chris Weitz to make it happen through dialogue that uses leaden language where characters discuss what makes someone truly human, there is no soul.

Image: Disney Enterprises

Nü-Pinocchio gets off to a shaky start by skipping past “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which may be the most quintessential Disney song of all time. Jiminy cricket performs it in a calm, touching moment of the original movie, 2022 PinocchioIt is shortened and given to the Blue Fairy. Erivo is a truly remarkable singer, evident in her Tony-winning Broadway role in “The Blue Fairy.” Purple. She is beautiful in her rendition of this abbreviated masterpiece. But handing the song to her makes Jiminy a less interesting character, far less present and passionate — which is a problem, since he’s meant to illustrate humanity to Pinocchio, even though neither of them are human.

You can see the changes happening. Unlike in the animated film, Geppetto (Tom Hanks, whose questionable Italian accent does not deserve a future in memes à la his ElvisHe also gives an unhelpful explanation for why such a gentle old woodcarver would produce a boyish marionette. He also explains why he refuses to sell off his dead wife’s treasured cuckoo clocks — which feature characters like Rafiki and Simba, Roger Rabbit, and Sheriff Woody, which may go down as one of the most painful bits of corporate synergy in film history.

These are answers to questions best left unasked — many of the small touches in the original PinocchioBecause they are elusive, their haunting beauty is unfathomable. Zemeckis & Weitz meticulously spelled out every emotion. This removes any possibility of enigmatic complexity. And while the computer technology bringing Pinocchio to life is nowhere near as creepy as anything in Zemeckis’ Polar Express, that’s mitigated by how obviously fake he is anytime there’s a shot with a human actor “touching” or “holding” the little wooden boy.

Image: Disney Enterprises

The story’s outline will still be extremely recognizable to anyone with a passing familiarity with the animated film or Collodi’s Pinocchio’s Adventures. This is an old film. However, someone thought the film should laugh at its own fancy. When Pinocchio, stuck in a cage by the evil Stromboli, begins to tell a lie and his wooden nose grows, Jiminy says, “A bit on the nose, I’d say.” When Pinocchio rattles off his various adventures late in the film, a bemused character asks, “You did all that in one day?” Simultaneously copycatting a classic and smugly mocking it comes across as crass, as if Zemeckis and company are afraid of real emotion, and determined to safeguard audiences against any sense of authenticity or sincerity.

This Pinocchio isn’t quite a shot-for-shot remake of the 1940 film, though its scant few additions are so baffling in part because they feel so insubstantial. Songs such as “Give a Little Whistle” and “Little Wooden Head” have been jettisoned in favor of four lifeless new songs by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard. Each one stops the story’s pacing in its tracks. Hanks is tasked with two new numbers in the early going, where he speak-sings his way through painful lyrics that rhyme “Pinocchio” with “Holy smokey-o.”

The way Pinocchio is ensnared by the Coachman (Luke Evans, doing his best impression of Disney’s animated Captain Hook) and needled by other kids into going to Pleasure Island hints at one of this remake’s most unavoidable problems: Zemeckis and company don’t want it to be as complex as its forebear. Though the 1940 version of Pinocchio isn’t as aggressive and rowdy as his fellow boys on Pleasure Island, he’s perfectly willing to dive into bad behavior, aping his cigar-smoking pal Lampwick.

However, his childish and naive selflessness only makes his ultimate heroism more redeeming. In Zemeckis’ version, Pinocchio is initially led astray by some uncouth characters, but he’s essentially a good little boy from start to finish, whereas many of the other characters — especially some new human characters, like a loutish headmaster and a kindly performer in Stromboli’s traveling show, who both throw around the term “real” like a buzzword — are as hollow as the wood that comprises the title character.

Image: Disney Enterprises

Pinocchio isn’t the first Disney remake to be shunted straight to Disney Plus. (Mulan debuted on the service’s premium tier.) This is not the first Robert Zemeckis flick to stream online in skip-theaters. It is, however, the first Robert Zemeckis film to be streamed online. The WitchesThe only serious competitor against remake is HBO Max Pinocchio(This was his most terrible film. One of the original Disney Plus films that premiered in 2019 was The Lady and the Tramp The remake is predictable, unremarkable, and completely inexplicable.

The 2022 PinocchioAlthough there were some great moments, these are not the most memorable. Pinocchio will never forget looking at horse manure in a heap and touching it with curiosity. It’s a gross image in a film that otherwise doesn’t add in scatalogical humor, a gag that isn’t in the original and has no purpose in the remake, and a weirdly unnecessary cost in a film that struggles to merge CG and live-action elements. Maybe all this is just the beginning. Pinocchio ’22 is a top-to-bottom embarrassment with no good reason to exist, so it might as well feature images with an equal lack of creative logic.

PinocchioDisney Plus debuts Sept. 8