You wait all this time for a Pinocchio movie and suddenly two come along at once. Sure, Robert Zemeckis’ live-ish remake of the old Disney animated film was, well, dreadful, but we have good news: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is in cinemas now and hitting Netflix on December 9.
You know the drill: lonely toymaker wishes for a son, a puppet he has made is magically brought to life, and adventures and life lessons ensue.
GDT has been trying to mount a version of Carlo Collodi’s 1883 Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio for ages, but the project languished in development hell until Netflix stepped in, stumping up the money and an impressive degree of creative freedom for the Hellboy and The Shape of Water director (the Oscars must have helped, surely).
Thus, this Pinocchio is a stop-motion animated film set in 1930s fascist Italy, which is in line with GDT’s previous explorations of fascist Spain (The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth) but may present a barrier to entry for the smaller potential audience members.
But that’s okay—del Toro makes fairy tales for adults, and it’s amazing what themes you can dig into under the cover of genre. It’s certainly a visually sumptuous piece of cinema, and the voice cast is no less impressive: relative newcomer Gregory Mann as Pinocchio is supported by a stellar ensemble including Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Burn Gorman, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, Tim Blake Nelson, Christoph Waltz, and Tilda Swinton.
We almost got Tom Waits as Pinocchio’s conscience, Sebastian J. Cricket, instead of Ewan McGregor, which strikes us as a bit of missed opportunity, but nonetheless we are suckers for Guillermo del Toro’s particular brand of dark, intelligent, thematically complex whimsy. Make for the big screen if you can, but failing that, make a date with the puppet master on Netflix soon.
