Pinocchio review: Disney’s live-action take on animated classic is wooden and lifeless

Each time Disney resurrects its greatest animated hits as live-action movies, no one is expecting a radical rethink or anything remotely ground-breaking. Just a sense of wonder, a capacity to reawaken a childlike curiosity and some amount of sincerity. Animation may make it seem like nothing is beyond the reaches of imagination. When you are aspiring for photorealism, you don’t have the same degree of creative luxury. The results are invariably an alloyed form of Disney magic.

That magic loses all its potency in the new Pinocchio, a less alloyed, more adulterated live-action movie the studio has cannily dumped on its streaming platform. Robert Zemeckis retells the story of a wooden puppet who wishes to be a flesh­-and-blood boy. As you might expect, the movie owes more to the 1940 animated classic than its much darker Italian source material by Carlo Collodi. To play Pinocchio’s father Geppetto, Zemeckis brings on board his Forrest Gump and Cast Away star, the beloved Tom Hanks. To voice Pinocchio, he brings in fresh blood with newcomer Benjamin Evan Ainsworth.

Like the Pinocchios before it, the new one too comes with strings attached — in more ways than one. The titular character is brought to life with CGI in a real-world setting where every other human character is played by real actors. From the plot machinations to the comedy, the whole production is so inert it feels like a log of wood that wishes it were a real movie. Only, Zemeckis can’t wish upon a star and summon The Blue Fairy to animate it to life with a single stroke of her magic wand.

Our entryway into the story is again Jiminy Cricket, the anthropomorphic insect voiced here by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He introduces us to Hanks’ mournful clockmaker Geppetto, whom we meet at his work table, mumbling to himself as he puts the final touches to the pine-carved puppet that will be christened Pinocchio. At the time of the christening, one of the other names considered is Chris Pine. As established, the jokes are quite wooden. Geppetto is a lonely old man who has lost his wife and son. Living with him and providing him company are a CG kitten named Figaro and a CG goldfish named Cleo. So, when he wishes for the puppet to be a “real boy,” the Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo) grants it sentience. But to become a “real boy,” she insists Pinocchio must prove himself worthy of it, and assigns him a chirping conscience in the form of Jiminy Cricket to aid him on his moral journey.

From here, the movie bounces around from one episodic misadventure to another. The guileless Pinocchio is lured into an exploitative travelling puppet show by a scheming fox (Keegan-Michael Key) with the promise of fame, and led by the vile Coachman (Luke Evans) into an amusement park from hell with the promise of pleasure. Be it the Collodi version or the Disney, the story was meant to be a series of cautionary lessons for young children: Don’t talk to strangers; Don’t be led astray by temptations; Don’t lie. The last one is the big one, as Pinocchio’s nose grows longer with each lie. But Zemeckis and co-screenwriter Chris Weitz refrain from using this as a disciplinary measure. The one time they do use it, it is almost as a superpower in a scene where Pinocchio gets himself out of captivity by lengthening his nose to reach for the keys. The movie also doesn’t enlist the Blue Fairy as a liberator whenever Pinocchio gets into trouble. Instead, it brings in a new character in the kindly puppeteer Fabiana (Kyanne Lamaya) to play a similar role that ultimately never grows beyond its limited function.

Pinocchio’s coming-to-life tale is as much a coming-of-ager about a boy trying to find his place in a world he struggles to fit into. To be sure, this is a world quite daunting and frankly hostile to children. A sly fox who calls himself Honest John tells you everything you need to know about it. Or consider the dubiously named Pleasure Island where children are unsupervised and allowed to be naughty. But the freedom comes at a cost: they get turned into donkeys and sold as slave labour. In the final part, Pinocchio and Geppetto end up in the belly of a gigantic whale and must find a way out. Need we remind you this is still the watered-down Disney version of the tale.

The song list is a mix of old and new. Erivo croons a tuneful rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star,” a song that has come to define the Disney brand, even underscoring its logo. Hanks, on the other hand, doesn’t really have the pipes to flaunt. Nor is he given a meaty enough role to flaunt his acting chops. Reframing the story as a father-son drama or a meditation on grief instead of all the usual moralizing may have allowed for a far more refreshing perspective. But the Pinocchio-Geppetto bonding is wrapped up in a quick montage. So, when they eventually reunite, the moment lacks the sentimental punch. Overall, this is a movie low on emotional resonance.

All hope now lies on Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion animated version of Pinocchio (which arrives on Netflix in December) to reclaim a legacy cheapened by Robert Zemeckis and tarnished by Roberto Benigni.

Pinocchio is now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

Prahlad Srihari is a film and music writer based in Bengaluru.

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