At the beginning of Disney's PINOCCHIO, Jiminy Cricket gets into an argument with the narrator. It is always the best idea to stay on the good side of the narrator.

We call this "Disney's Pinocchio" to distinguish it from the Netflix PINOCCHIO, a.k.a. "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio". These are in keeping with the gran Hollywood tradition of having one studio announce a film, and then another one do a copycat version. An example would be WYATT EARP and TOMBSTONE. In this case, Disney must have been the copycat, because del Toro was working on his version for fourteen years, and filming for three.

Often the difference is in budget. and that is true here; the Disney version was budgeted at $150 million, and the del Toro version at $35 million. But the most visible difference is that the Disney version is live-action/CGI and the del Toro version is stop-motion animation.

Disney has the marquee name of Tom Hanks. But (at least in this film) he can't sing, and shouldn't have tried.

Disney's PINOCCHIO has the traditional Disney look, and Pinocchio could have been lifted straight from the 1940 version.

Not everything is traditional. The town's population is more racially diverse than would be historically accurate, and the Blue Fairy is Black. (This ha generated a lot of comment, but in the 1940 version she was white with blonde hair, and if we have talking foxes and puppets that come alive, one can't complain too much about not sticking to reality.

Another change is that Pleasure Island has no smoking or alcohol, and ends up looking like Disneyland--and that is supposedly a bad thing? (However, there is vandalism and bullying, so it by any means totally ideal.

Released on Disney+ streaming 8 September 2022. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10

Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4593060/reference

What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pinocchio_2022

					Mark R. Leeper
					Copyright 2023 Mark R. Leeper