Pinocchio

A live-action take on the classic animation has effective visual moments and an impactful turn from Tom Hanks but never quite justifies its existence.

You can see echoes of a Twitter pile-on in the “contempt corner” of the Coachman’s (a devilish Luke Evans) deceptive Pleasure Island for destructive, conscience-free children. Most of all, Kyanne Lamaya stands out as Fabiana, an invented character who befriends Pinocchio at Stromboli’s show; her communication with him via actual marionette is by far the most convincing and moving puppet-human interaction in the film. Jiminy, who I must note looks, disconcertingly, more alien than insect, also serves as the narrator and thus the main interlocutor between modern dialogue and the 19th-century setting – for kids and for parents (“well of course there are other ways to make a real boy, but I don’t think Geppetto gets out much,” he tells the Blue Fairy). Hanks is the platonic ideal of a pathos figure for children, and you cannot help but root for him acting valiantly amid the CGI, trying and occasionally succeeding to anchor this story of a talking puppet to real human emotion. So it makes sense that the inevitable (for business reasons) live-action remake of Pinocchio will bypass theaters and head straight to Disney+. Pinocchio has long been a misfit within the classic Disney canon – the early animated films which solidified Walt Disney’s reputation as a master storyteller and formed the bedrock layer of American cinematic fairytales.