Disney's Pinocchio (Live-Action)

[Ben]

Some hope…from the MCU thread:

This is the bigger and more exciting news from that article:

Bettany recently joined Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in Miramax’s Here, with Robert Zemeckis directing and Eric Roth adapting the script.

Had heard nothing about this, reuniting the big players of Forrest Gump. Could BZ be BACK-back…!?

I also recommend another overlooked, underrated Zemeckis (as producer)/Hanks collaboration: Finch, which like Greyhound got picked up by Apple, meaning almost no-one has seen it. Try and catch it somehow: hoping that someone will issue an eventual disc for this lovely film.

[Daniel]

(not to mention redundant thanks to having the ending spoiled…yeah, that still rankles, and a big part of why I haven’t run that yet, as now there just doesn’t seem much point).

Yeah, I don't blame you. Reminds me of the time when Ed spoiled the ending to Million Dollar Baby for you. So many similarities in that situation.

[Ben]

Hooooo-boy…

So, yeah, we ran this Saturday night. So much to unpack…

I actually really liked the opening, after getting used to Jiminy Cricket. Why do so many people think he sounds like Cliff Edwards? Yes, he’s trying to do a bad Ukulele Ike impersonation, but its basically like they couldn’t get Matthew McConaughey for whatever reason, and so had Gordon-Levitt kind of try and blend the two. Honestly, close your eyes and tell me that’s not McConaughey's vocal inflections in there. Quite bizarre, and kept taking me out of the movie, not like there wasn’t a lot of other stuff to keep pulling us out!

So the opening was sweet, with Hanks and his oddly beguiling little half-song thing, which was touching and made me think this might not be so bad after all. And then it literally started to drag in the first ten minutes. How long did it take Geppetto to get to bed? And then the Blue Fairy turned up, and things just dropped off the cliff…

What a strange film full of odd, strange choices. After Fairy turns up and absolutely MURDERS When You Wish Upon A Star — seriously, this was the best take? Did they have limited time? Couldn’t they have lowered the key so she literally didn’t have to screach out the last few notes? My goodness! — the film's dialogue turns into a complete mush of people asking us what is about to happen and then, or having other people, telling us what just happened. Or telling us what is happening *as it is actually happening*!! Honestly, once you catch this bizarre tick you can’t not hear it.

And you can’t blot out the bad sounding score either, which occasionally works but then reduces the songs we know to bad karaoke versions that don’t run their full length (if at all — why have Give A Little Whistle when a long dialogue scene can s-p-e-l-l i-t a-l-l o-u-t and muddle it all up at the same time?

But then…we cut or drop the traditional standards and swap or augment them with bizarro different equivalents: Turn On The Old Music Box is a weird synthy thing that Hanks dances to, and we get that odd I've Got No Strings replacement that the disabled girl sings (wha…?) with her is it or isn’t it alive girl puppet that gets all Welcome To Marwen and slightly too suggestably sexual at times.

Which reminds me of the fox and cat, who in the original we don’t really question, since it’s a cartoon and the resemblance to a fax and cat can half be put down to J Worthington Foulfellow's being a caricature of a sly fox, and Gideon being a sneaky cat. But here, since everything is photoreal, it kind of begs the question as to why no-one is alarmed or even surprised to see walking talking animals. Which then begs the question of why those talking animals think anyone would be amazed to see a walking, talking puppet — HELLO! You are a walking, talking fox and cat!

This is mirrored later on, when the Coachman, who is never properly established, expresses his desire to capture Pinoke when half turned into the donkey, again totally overlooking the fact that he has A WALKING, TALKING WOODEN PUPPET in his grasp.

Now, this was the ONE thing that this new version got right. It always kind of bugged me in the original that when the boys had had their fun and then had to pay for it, that Pinocchio appeared to be turning from a wooden boy into a flesh and blood donkey. That just never made sense to me, so it was admittedly quite cool to see that here, he naturally and quite rightly starts to become a *wooden* donkey, with a very nicely done interlinked tail, a nice touch.

But that’s it for the good stuff. We're soon back in nonsensical land. When the aforementioned boys (and girls) get to Pleasure Island, I’m not actually quite sure what to think. Gone is the wanton destruction and bad behavior of the original, and in comes…a bit of rowdiness? Where kids think it’s cool to smash up…um…clocks? Mainly because this…reminds Pinoke of Geppetto, maybe? And so that’s a Bad Thing? Because I know that given a bunch of kids stuff to smash up and the thing they’re going to go straight for is the clocks… Maybe if there had been some context of kids fighting against time itself, or if Pleasure Island's pleasure was a nightmare to others, so the innermost inhibitions manifest themselves: Pinocchio sees clocks because he knows that’s what would hurt those he loves the most? But this isn’t the film for that. It’s just clocks, because.

Which reminds me of Geppetto's sacrifice to go save Pinocchio. All through the film, we are told that he doesn’t sell the clocks he makes. It’s amazing in itself that he’s apparently seen a bunch of Disney films to base his clocks on (or is this Disney again making use of out of copyright ideas? That’s a wink there.), and I didn’t really mind the blatant references here. Somewhat out of place, but hey, also kind of a nice nod too, and whatchagonnado when you need a bunch of differently themed clocks in a modern Disney live-action remake?

Sooo, Geppetto never sells his clocks — which then asks how he actually then makes a living and keeps his place? — because he wife loved them. And she’s gone. So that’s how he remembers her. But then, I guess he loves Pinocchio more because he sells them all to get a boat and go look for him. At least, we guess he does, because all that inexplicably happens off-camera, when we’ve already had the setup for it at the start of the film, and because again, this film isn’t interested in paying off subplot or giving Hanks anything emotional to do like making his mind up to do this, or even reasoning his feelings towards Pinoke and making the decision that this would be a worthwhile use of the money he would get so that he could buy a boat.

But then…Geppetto, as we the audience are, apparently gets completely gipped by this sale. Any ONE of those clocks would have been worth the bathtub of a boat he seemingly ends up with (again, all off-camera). And we are told that "he sold all his clocks" to…get this bit of wood with a side on it!?!?? Woah, MAN was he gipped! He probably could have knocked up that boat himself given his supplies and the wacky element of this movie. It’s again another part of this puzzling puzzle that we are told about, in this case from new character Sofia the seagull, who sometimes talks and sometimes doesn’t, even though other animals can talk, before she apparently flies off as a total blanking of Jiminy when he’s out in the water looking for Pinoke. It’s all so strange…

And I haven’t even mentioned the "sea monster", which is what apparently Monstro is now, because being a massive whale isn’t big enough, also apparently. But he just looks like a whale. With weird tentacle things that don’t really do anything or have any meaning, other that to then be able to call him a sea monster instead of a whale. At which point it seems the money ran out in post-production, because from here on in the visual effects resemble a not even very good video game from around ten years ago.

We've already had simply awful eyelines — nobody EVER *really* looks at Pinocchio through almost the entire movie. The eyelines are always a little too high, or low, but mostly high, like they’re looking at his eyebrows or hairline, instead of his eyes. This is pretty poor coming from the guy who made Roger Rabbit, and Tom Hanks, who just perfectly played off a robot in the wonderful streaming film Finch. Worse of all is Lampwick in the coach on the way to Pleasure Island, who barely looks at Pinocchio even while staring DIRECTLY AT HIM. On the island itself, this eyeline issue is really put to the test, with the interaction really letting the tech guys down.

But back to the ending, and after spending literally two minutes in the (whale) sea monster, they get out in their bathtub boat, and Pinoke suddenly develops the Dash Parr ability to run on water, speeding the boat back to not actually very far away land, so someone would have probably seen Monstro at some point anyway. But…anyway…Pinocchio speeds Geppetto back to land as the monster chases, and the repetitious shots (Hanks looking over his shoulder and back is repeated at least three times) and embarrassing lack of any kind of interaction of the seawater, where the whale and boat look like they have just been overlaid and given a thumbs up "that’ll do" approval for the handful of audience members who may still be watching by this point.

And so the film eventually closes, as near the very long two hour mark — and even now I’m remembering other elements that I haven’t even touched on here — and we get what was previously spoiled to us as to Pinoke's fate. A month in now, and I think it’s fine to talk about it: this ending completely misses the point of the story. And deceives ITSELF by setting up Geppetto’s son and reasons for making Pinocchio, and then doesn’t pay that off.

In fact, the entire film misses the point. Pinocchio is shown right from the start that he basically grasps the difference between right and wrong. When Jiminy disappears for long stretches at a time, Pinocchio continuously makes the "right" decisions. He knows he should go to school. He knows that what is going on at Pleasure Island is "wrong", and doesn’t really partake in it all — mainly because, you know, clocks. And the ONE time we get the famous lying nose, apparent conscience Jiminy actually encourages telling fibs to get them out of their jam! Just another backwards element of this backwards movie that’s all backwards!

So by the end-end, of *course* we don’t get the payoff that’s been expected and setup right from the start. Or do we? Again, the film's back and forth, on and off, up and down decisions mean that Pinocchio *might* have become a real boy…but just not on camera. It’s all very strange and frustrating, just as the outcome for the disabled girl and her is-she-alive-or-is-she-a-puppet puppet (who appears to need strings to move, and the girl to provide her voice, kind of, but then is able to blink, seemingly independently, so WTF?). I can only assume that she slayed and garrotted Stromboli and stole his puppet show, because he’s nowhere to be seen, although again this is one of the things never shown on camera, and which we are only told about albeit this time after the fact — a rare occurrence instead of being told what is or is about to happen.

I’m sure I’m forgetting much that also bewildered me about this new Pinocchio, but my brain is still fizzled a few days on. I’m not surprised Zemeckis hasn’t battled to have his name above the title on the logo, as I’m sure he can’t be too proud of it either. Is this his worst film? Well, no. Not including Mars Needs Moms, which he didn’t direct, we did have to sit through the other uncanny valley films and Allied, and at least Pinocchio has a feint air of familiarity about it, even if we watch it mostly with puzzled heads and jaws dropped.

It’s just a bizarro mish-mash mess of a movie that is too soft on how hard it should be, and too unintentionally surreal in the places it’s trying intentionally to be soft. It continuously contradicts itself as it’s even playing out, using narration to try and drive things forward but mostly just as a tool to try and clarify exactly what we are seeing as it is going on. It’s like an English language film that was shot in a different language and then dubbed back into English anyway. And that can’t really be good, can it?

As I say, there’s a lot to unpack…

[EricJ]

Hooooo-boy…
What a strange film full of odd, strange choices. After Fairy turns up and absolutely MURDERS When You Wish Upon A Star —
...
and we get that odd I've Got No Strings replacement that the disabled girl sings (wha…?) with her is it or isn’t it alive girl puppet that gets all Welcome To Marwen and slightly too suggestably sexual at times.
...
this ending completely misses the point of the story. And deceives ITSELF by setting up Geppetto’s son and reasons for making Pinocchio, and then doesn’t pay that off.

Again, there's a lot of meddling that, if it were just the crazy ending, would suggest a screenwriter was trying to "improve" it for the 21st cty., but then...we get the bat-crazy stuff with the "whtt-whtt-whtt" mark of the Z.

Like, why the movie is so deathly AFRAID of using the Blue Fairy past her one big opening plot point, and having nice girl/puppets and friendly seagulls save the character instead--
It's not like Song of the South, we're not going to offend anyone by the outdated mid-20th-cty. use of blue magical people...Unless BZ was doing a Christopher Nolan, and was just simply embarrassed at the simplistic fairytale tropes of the original source. And also tried to "improve" it.

(I'm not even going to ask why the Fairy is the one to sing WYWUAS, since it's Jiminy's song anyway, although we certainly weren't expecting the new Jiminy to sing it.
It's a song for simple folk who believe in the idea, but when the Fairy sings it herself, it's, what, advertising?)

But, like I said: Even if the ending was "spoiled"--and then only out of utter disbelief--that was only the tip of a titanic iceberg.
And I can't help feeling a little vindication at my Galileo-persecuted heretical beliefs that Bob Z. was a disturbing nutball.

[Ben]

With the Fairy, I think they were going for the whole thing of Pinoke working it all out for himself, so having her come back to fix the nose later on was maybe too much of an easy get out. So, instead, they had Jiminy explain that concept — because there wasn’t already enough talking in this film — and then used *that* as the easy get out! And thus going against the whole lesson about lying *and* teaching kids that it’s actually okay to lie if it helps you get your cricket pal across a room so that he can nab a key to let you out of your room…! So, so muddled. Not like Pinocchio needed telling anyway, as he pretty much had stuff sussed from the off, so it’s all pretty redundant!

As you say, I don’t think anyone was expecting Gordon-Levitt to sing, so who else do you give WYWUAS to? Fairy is a fairly fair character to carry the song, but at least give it to her in a more meaningful place — like maybe when she first arrives, using the song as context as to who she is and why she is there, or a return visit at the end, when she could have maybe been visible to Geppetto, who the song is arguably aimed at anyway, and could have made for a much more emotional ending (yes, I know, too late by that point but, hey, it might have worked). As it is, she's about to leave and just blurts it out from halfway through, a surprise at both where this comes from, and in how gawdawful that supposedly ethereal singing is! Honestly, in the key it started in, I immediately worried about where the final notes where going to go, and would have been pretty impressed as it got toward that point and I thought and hoped she might wow us all…but, no; "dreams come true" (and the "true" itself they try to hide by reverting it off into the sky) was painfully painful. Why didn’t they hire a singer? Or start it in a lower key? It’s like one of those karaoke sessions where non-musicians start off in too high a register and have nowhere to go. Embarrassing.

And yet, I still can’t go with BZ being a disturbing nutball. The guy made the BTTF trilogy, Roger and Forrest at the very least, and several other very great/fun/thrilling movies. No, that shouldn’t get him a free pass on projects like this, but I’m at least always willing to hope that the next one pulls him back on track. The Witches, whatever its fate, was actually lots of fun and really well made; not a classic, but much more underrated than it will be remembered as and not fair in getting thrown under the pandemic streaming bus. And to think that he turned down The Flash to make Pinocchio…although in retrospect that might have been the wiser, lesser hassled choice!

[Randall]

Ben, you may now rest assured that I am not going to try to defend this film. Even my generosity has its limits.

My wife and I tried to watch this today. My wife gave up after the first 90 minutes, while I soldiered on.

Yikes what a bore this film is. Clunky, lifeless, and simply not well done. It's pretty painful for most of its length. Added moments and songs only made it worse.

Emblematic of the whole messy production: Jiminy made a bizarrely curious point of describing how a gravel road has, well, gravel on it, with loose rocks. Moments later, Honest John slides on his knees along the road, without dislodging a single rock. So, we get a pointless remark, followed by a sloppy bit of CGI compositing. Barbie has had sharper DTV movies.

And why was Stromboli so fake looking? It would seem hard to mess up hiring a large Italian guy with a big black beard, but they screwed that up, too.

Even Tom Hanks was bad. He kept changing his voice, like he was relaxing during rehearsal.

In addition to everything else that's been said, the lighting seemed often poor to me. Pinocchio's too-bright face nearly blended in with the sky on some shots, while the coachman's song had him in the dark while children behind him had their faces lit. Just odd.

Man, one could go on and on.

So, for me, this rests next to BATB for worst remake.

I will say, though, that Pinocchio is shown turning into a real boy at the end, as his legs clearly become human as he walks away with Gepetto... at the same time that Jiminy says he's not aware of whether Pinocchio ever became a real boy? Just another weird moment in a weird movie.

[Ben]

I’m glad you enjoyed it!

And, well, thank gawd for that…I was expecting the usual, "well, there were parts of it that I liked, it’s not a solid 8/10 but it’s up there", so I’m glad we have avoided that. This film really isn’t defensible!

I’ll admit I didn’t notice the legs at the end, but then I probably missed the subtlety as I was reaching for the remote so that I could be ready to get back to the credits when D+ does that annoying thing of reducing them to a box to tell us about another lame thing they have ready to stream when all I wanna do is finish the thing I’m already watching! So I missed that, but kinda glad, as that would have been yet another dumb thing, and yet another example of someone explaining something only to show it anyway…or in this case, actually almost contradicting what’s being said.

Interesting point on the bad level…I’m not sure if it was better or worse than B&TB, or Lion King for that matter. It was certainly the most bizarre…!

Anyway…well done for making it through!

(I can’t believe Tess gave up "after the first 90 minutes"!? I think past the halfway mark at the latest you can’t say "the first"…you’re way into the movie! Maybe gave up ten minutes from the end? I’d have had to have gone with it by that point, but I admire her willingness to stick it out till *almost* the painful end! Her choice next time, then, eh!?)

[Randall]

She was actually pretty excited to see it. Before watching, she said, "I've never seen a Tom Hanks movie I didn't like." Well, consider that streak ended. (My Hanks streak ended looong ago.) When we got to the part where they were inside Monstro, out of curiosity I checked the time code, seeing there was nearly a half-hour left. She exclaimed, "You've got to be kidding me!" And then she basically said, "I''m outta here." At that point, she suggested that I leave the living room, where we'd been watching on a 50" TV (see, I hadn't even insisted on watching it on the projection screen). I was kinda glad, actually, to check it out on the larger screen downstairs. I was having trouble making things out on the 50" screen, since the movie was so dark at times, and the room was too bright. Not optimal viewing at all, which further hampered any enjoyment I might have had.

(Aside: I preferred it in HD on my projector rather than in 4K on the TV. The 4K looked too digital - no grain - and too fake. The HD had more of a simulated grain appearance, though that may not really be accurate; but it certainly worked better for me. It's like what folks said when they saw The Hobbit in HFR - it looked so real, it looked fake.)

I don't really believe in ranking things; I like to just judge each thing on its own merits and leave it at that. But this and BATB are definitely at the bottom for me, though for different reasons.

The ending of Pinocchio was certainly bizarre, for narrating that we'll never know something... while SHOWING us the answer! Really dumb. And yet, it was so subtle, I probably would have missed it too if I was still watching on a smaller screen. It was quick, too, but I went back and checked, and freeze-framed, and it's definitely the case, looking especially at the knee joint.

Last night, we all watched The Bridge on the River Kwai. Sooooo much better!

[Daniel]

Thought it was pretty obvious Pinocchio was transitioning to a real boy, it was just very subtle. After the spoiler was posted I even tried hinting at that. Was hoping for a relief response, but I guess not!

And I thought I was harsh with my earlier comments. Funnily enough Ben had a lot of the same issues. Could've been so much better.

[Randall]

Thought it was pretty obvious Pinocchio was transitioning to a real boy, it was just very subtle.

A conflicted thought for a conflicted film! Very subtle in its obviousness.

[Ben]

I looked at this last night, and, yes, the legs go "real" for about two seconds. Totally bonkers. I missed it as I was reaching for the remote to keep the credits fullscreen, which I hate when they reduce them.

Funny about Tess: you almost literally had ten minutes to go, plus ten minutes of credits which she could have skipped, and ten minutes of foreign dub credits (never forget to drop those dub names from the running time of anything on streaming!). So, yeah, she only had around ten minutes of actual movie to go…!

(I also hope you’ve turned off all the crappy digital processing on your new TV! That’s certainly not going to help different formats look any better!)

[Randall]

Yes, the TV is properly adjusted. No "motion smoothing" or sharpening or other nonsense.

When Tess is done, she is done. I don't know how many films she has partially or even largely watched, only to give up and turn them off. Doesn't matter how far along she is. She also has complained about losing interest during the opening credits!

[Ben]

The Razzies are here! The Razzies are here!

Quite rightly, Pinocchio — and Hanks — gets multiple noms:

— Worst Picture (natch)
— Worst Actor (not entirely fair; he only sold what he could sell)
— Worst Remake/Sequel (again obvs)
— Worst Supporting Actress (Lorraine Bracco for her WTF seagull)
— Worst Screenplay (goes without saying)
— Worst Director (totally fair, and I say this still as a BZ fan…no not that one, the *other* BZ…for an amazing amount of WTF choices than one film deserves)

In addition, Hanks also gets Elvis nods for Worst Supporting Actor, admittedly for his bafflingly bizarre choice of accent as non-colonel Tom, as well as Worst Screen Couple, for his "Latex-Laden Face (and Ludicrous Accent)"!

The laborious Blonde also comes under fire, as does Morbius and, to a lesser extent, Jurassic's Dominion, all quite appropriately. List of noms:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... films-2022

[EricJ]

And three for the overbearingly "empowered" The King's Daughter (Picture, Actress, Supp. Actress) after its nine-year journey to the screen.
I don't know any of the others offhand besides those mentioned, but there's rich enough karma with the Pinocchio and Blonde noms. We'll make an exception here, and say that, for once, it's NOT Morbin' Time.

[Daniel]

They nominated a 12-year-old for Worst Actress. Talk about classy.