Netflix’s Pinocchio (2022) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Some stories can’t get told right until told multiple times. Ironically, that is what led to perfection for Pinocchio.


PLOT


The 2022 Netflix adaptation, released in the same year Walt Disney remade its 40s predecessor, is a more faithful adaptation to the Carlo Collodi novel. The film takes place in 30a Italy where woodcarver Geppetto grieves for the loss of his only son Carlo who died of an aerial bombardment in WWI. 20 years later, he carves a wooden puppet made out of a tree planted by him in his boy’s grave. When a magical Wood Sprite discovers his creation at night, she gives it life, naming it Pinocchio, and assigns Sebastian J Cricket, a talking cricket who previously lived in the pine wood, to teach him morality in exchange for a wish of his liking. When Geppetto wakes up surprised his creation to life, he tries taking him to school in order for him to have self control, but the wooden boy ignores him and joins showman Count Volpe to perform at his circus. When Geppetto tracks him down, they get into an argument that unintentionally leads to Pinocchio get ran over by Officer Podesta. In the afterlife, he meets Death incarnate who explains him not being human grants him immortality and can go back to the land of the living as long as each hourglass empties, but the more he dies the longer he stays. When revived for the first time, he respects Volpe’s contract and joins the circus. He only soon wants to leave when seeing the showman be abusive towards his monkey assistant Spazzatura (Cate Blanchett) and not give his profits to his father. He gets out of his contract when ridiculing dictator Benito Mussolini so bad that the orders the wooden boy to be killed. Revived again, he is taken in by Podesta who sees his immortality as the perfect weapon of war. That doesn’t last either because he soon befriends the generals neglected son Candlewick (Finn Wolfhard) who refuses to kill him in a training game. This leads to the latter standing up to his father who dies in the training camp from an allied aircraft. The impact causes Pinocchio to be ricocheted out of there while Candlewick escapes with other training boys. Upon finding him, Volpe tries to kill him for ruining his career until Spazzatura intervenes by pushing him off the seaside cliff which kills his abusive master. The monkey swims with the wooden boy until being swallowed by a giant sea creature, the Terrible Dogfish, who also swallowed Geppetto and the Cricket. Reunited, they all cooperate in order to escape. Knowing he can extend his nose when lying, Pinocchio lies as much as he could to form a bridge leading out of the blowhole. It does work but when the dogfish tries to swallow them all again, the wooden boy ends the conflict by detonating a naval mine that kills it. This puts him in the afterlife again, but he asks Death to release him sooner to save Geppetto. He gets what he requests but when he drowns as a result of his selflessness, returning early cost him his immortality. Luckily, the Cricket uses his wish for the Sprite to revive Pinocchio. Spazzatura joins them to Italy to be part of the family but one by one, he, Geppetto and the Cricket would soon die of old age. Outliving them all, the film ends with Pinocchio traveling the world on his own and find a new place in life.


THOUGHTS


Stop motion is an underrated platform of animation because there is high passion not many can understand correctly. The directing team of Mark Gustafson & Guillermo Del Toro were arguably the best pair to get it right with the narrative they crafted together in order to do a story justice. Yes, this is a fairy tale adaptation I prefer over the Walt Disney juggernaut that defined my childhood because each second that was animated was far more surreal. All the colors were beautiful and each character was more distinguishable compared to what I’ve seen in the Disney predecessor. Each backdrop made you feel reminded on how unpredictable life can be wherever you live. And I think that is part of where the message gets across that the whole point of this story as a whole is how we always have to embrace the naturality of life and build your own identity while you’re at it because in reality, you only live once. This is really the whole point of Pinocchio’s existence in overall literature because as the young Gregory Mann portrays him through his voice that he won’t be restrained in life no matter how much it annoys everyone else around him. The more time he spends alive, the more value he puts to it with all the bad that surrounds him. He starts understanding the difference of cruelty and innocence when seeing a slew of bad people pick on the harmless ones. Firsthand, Christoph Waltz & Ron Perlman are accurate examples of portraying the absorption of greed as Volpe and Podesta respectively, since they only put their needs/wants before anyone/anything else. While he never met the Wood Sprite that gave him life, he gets a grasp on understanding balance when meeting her sister Death, both of which are incredibly portrayed by Tilda Swinton who showed all fairness in the universe as said benevolent figures. In given time, the only ones that were able to teach enough morality for him to remember were the mentor and parent he never thought he had. As much as it annoyed him originally, he still took it with stride because personal experience helped him realize being good was better than being bad. Ewan McGregor was an ultimate delight as Sebastian J Cricket because pessimism grew to be empathy for him like any unplanned conscience in his point of view. With the time he had with Pinocchio, they were basically teaching each other to do better no matter how comfortable they feel as is, thus wishing for his revival. If someone is teaching you a better lesson than you were, then you owe them the world because you could’ve been lost without such lessons. That defends his case to narrate this story because he got to appreciate his life better than he already did and he’ll keep talking about it to this day in order to prove his point. Last but not least, Geppetto is the kind of parent you’re bound to sympathize with because it feels like the world ends when a parent loses a child. David Bradley accurately portrayed him as one who was most lost since he didn’t know how to cope with loss until having a second chance at parenthood he didn’t really depend on happening. Once it came his way, he did his best in teaching Pinocchio everything he would’ve taught Carlo. The fact he still tried searching for him when chances of a reunion were slim, only proved how much he tried to value his second chance. You also couldn’t blame him pleading with the Wood Sprite to save him because he didn’t want to be lost again. The fact he got to be a dad just a little longer before passing away got to help him reach the content he didn’t think he’d reach. With him gone, I’m sure Pinocchio will do his best in making extraordinary new chapters however long he lives. In short, Netflix’s Pinocchio is the superior adaptation for its faithfulness in showing unusual yet fascinating inspiration. If you got Netflix and want grounded fairy tales in your life, see this now.