Nolte: Critics and Audiences Agree — ‘Pinocchio’ Is Another Disney Catastrophe

The perverted child groomers at Disney have another catastrophe on their hands with Pinocchio, a live-action remake of Walt’s beloved 1940 masterpiece.

Here you have the pedigree of Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis, star Tom Hanks, co-star Cynthia Erivo, and a timeless fairytale remembered with goodwill. Additionally, you have Disney’s stunning track record of turning its classic toons into live-action money machines: The Lion King (2019), $543 million domestic. Beauty and the Beast (2017), $504 million domestic. Aladdin (2019), $355 million. The Jungle Book (2016), $364 million. Worldwide, all of these titles nudged or topped $1 billion.

This live-action Pinocchio is being dumped on Disney’s streaming service, which may have always been the idea, but that would be hard to believe. Production started seven years ago, five years before Disney+ launched. You also have Robert Zemeckis directing Tom Hanks. These two spun box office and Oscar gold with Forrest Gump (1994). Cast Away (2000) and the animated Polar Express (2004) were huge hits.

Pinocchio is a dud.

Critics have savaged it with a disastrous 31 percent Tomatometer rating. Top Critics rate it a dismal 17 percent. The audience rating is 41 percent.

I can’t track down any information, but the budget is likely in the $150 to $200 million range, especially after seven years of production.

So what went wrong?

Part of the problem is Zemeckis. The man who gave us Used Cars (1980), the Back to the Future (1985) franchise, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), What Lies Beneath (2000), Flight (2012), and the titles mentioned above, has spent the last two decades squandering his gifts with soulless CGI. Other than Barry Levinson and Rob Reiner, I know of no A-list director who dramatically collapsed his career through a series of terrible choices.

The other problem appears to be … yes, Disney felt the need to “correct” its own masterpiece, according to Polygon:

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. Where Jiminy Cricket performs it as a quiet, telling moment in the original film, the 2022 Pinocchio truncates it and gives the shorter version to the Blue Fairy. Erivo … [H]anding 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.

…

Because this is a modern film, though, apparently someone felt the film needed to scoff a bit at its own flights of 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.

Also, according to that review, Pinocchio doesn’t embrace all the selfish and destructive bad behavior (smoking cigars, etc.) on Pleasure Island, as he did in the original. The remake portrays Pinocchio as “a good little boy from start to finish.” This, naturally, undermines the complexity of the character, not to mention the importance of his redemption.

For some arrogant reason, the remake also removed the classic songs “Give a Little Whistle” and “Little Wooden Head.”

Why?

Watch the trailer for the new Pinocchio: 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.