BEFORE: OK, it's decision time again - I could drop this one, because I have it slotted between two other films with Tom Hanks, and if I were to drop it, the chain would just close up around it and remain unbroken, no big deal. Because by all rational accounts, I believe this film will be terrible. BUT I've already watched one version of "Pinocchio" this year, the one directed by Guillermo del Toro, so it behooves me to watch this one in the same year, for comparitive purposes, just as I watched "Cyrano" mid-year after watching no fewer than THREE romances in February that were riffs on the Cyrano storyline, but updated for modern audiences.
And if you count "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish", then this will be the THIRD film in Year 15 to feature the Pinocchio character. Pinocchio appeared briefly in that film as the mortal enemy of Little Jack Horner, but the film's riff on Jiminy Cricket, named "Ethical Bug" had a much larger role. So I think I'll proceed with this one, as planned - however, I'll still have to cut TWO films from later in the chain to cut it down to 300, and now there will really only be four choices, so two of those four films will have to go. I think I know which two have to go - but I'll make the decision in late October - if I'm busy in October, cutting one from the horror chain is a good idea, and the linking for that film is a little specious, anyway.
Tom Hanks carries over from "Asteroid City".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" (Movie #4,388)
THE PLOT: A puppet is brought to life by a fairy, who assigns him to lead a virtuous life in order to become a real boy.
AFTER: Yes, by all accounts from rational humans, this film is terrible. I know, I know, why watch it then? Why not just avoid it and move on with my life? Because I have to KNOW just how terrible it is, that's why. Sure, 2022 was a weird year, some films played in theaters and then were on streaming or digital on demand at the same time. We live in a different time now, where if a film does well in a movie theater, it can be streaming just three months later - heck, "Asteroid City" was streaming AND in theaters at the same time! (So, if you're into Wes Anderson, really you have no excuse for not watching it. It's fine! And so was "The French Dispatch"!). But I think we all know what it means when something DEBUTS on Disney Plus, right? They knew it would bomb in theaters - the budget on this film was about $150 million and the worldwide box office was just $33,000 - people would have stayed away in droves, and then if the film goes right to streaming, Disney doesn't have to release viewing numbers, so nobody will ever know how few people watched this. Hell, maybe I'm the only one.
Sure, I can go back and forth between Guillermo del Toro's version of "Pinocchio", and point out all the differences - Del Toro set his story between World War I and World War II in Italy, so that Geppetto's son could die in a bombing during the first war and Pinocchio could be recruited for military camp in the second war. And he could poke fun at Mussolini - so yeah, I approve that message. By contrast, the year before, Disney made a live-action CGI film that is essentially a remake of their own 1940 version of "Pinocchio", and that one already varied A LOT from the 1883 book by Carlo Collodi. Among DisneyCorp's additions to the story were the Blue Fairy bringing Pinocchio to life, cutting out characters like the parrot and the snake, changing the Terrible Dogfish to Monstro the Whale, and changing the name of the puppet show operator from Mangiafuoco to Stromboli. Also, in the original Collodi story the talking cricket dies quite early, and it's his ghost that acts as Pinocchio's conscience.
For comparative purposes, the 2023 del Toro film restored Monstro back to being a giant dogfish, had a Wood Sprite instead of a Blue Fairy, and featured Pinocchio dying several times, but returning to life after each death, only each time it takes a little longer. That film also avoided the Mangiafuoco/Stromboli confusion by combining several characters, including the Fox and Mangiafuoco, into one and renaming him Count Volpe. OK, whatever works and gets your story to the end, I guess.
I could continue making comparisons between the two versions, but to what end? All you really need to know is that I gave Guillermo del Toro's version a "7" and I"ll probably rate this one much lower. No, instead I want to use this film to talk about the actor's strike, because the different sections of this film actually have some very good advice for these troubled times, It kind of came to me when I saw Stromboli portrayed as a large, fat, powerful and cruel man, the man who runs the puppet show is a perfect metaphor for the network and streaming executives, who are rich and (presumably) well-fed, while Pinocchio is kept in a cage inside a wagon. Pinocchio represents the actors, and the cage represents their contracts, also Pinocchio notably is not being paid for his role in the puppet show, despite the fact that he's got a unique talent, he's a puppet without strings. (And therefore not a puppet, which is a little awkward, but there are a LOT of awkward things about this story. See NITPICK POINTS below.)
You might think I'm crazy - but Walt Disney was notorious for being anti-union, and there was that incident in 1941 when the Disney animators went on strike. DisneyCorp was a non-union company back then, and the employees got together and picketed and stopped film production for four months, then Walt's response was to fire most of them (this can happen, don't say I didn't warn you all...) though eventually he was forced to recognize the Screen Cartoonist's Guild and rehire the animators who wanted to return. Disney lost such talent as Preston Blair, Walt Kelly, John Hubley, Bill Melendez, Hank Ketcham, and many more who then went to work for MGM or Screen Gems or just did their own thing - while Walt Disney blamed communism for the strike and tried to blacklist those who participated.
Still don't see it? This movie features the song "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor's Life for Me)", which was written for the 1940 Disney film. It's sung by Honest John and Gideon, who in this film are the Fox and Cat con men who noticed the living wooden boy who wants to go to school, and convince him that he shouldn't do that, he should go work in the puppet show instead, where he can become famous, and that would please Geppetto more than him learning his ABC's. Really, their agents, and they are NOT to be trusted, which tracks. As Jiminy Cricket points out, an honest person wouldn't need to put "Honest" in his name, so therefore it's a misnomer, like naming a bald guy "Curly". To prove my point, even Tom Hanks has an agent, and that agent booked him to play Geppetto in this version of "Pinocchio", so I rest my case. They are not to be trusted.
In the film's third act, Pinocchio performs in Stromboli's puppet show, and he's a big hit, though he's kept in a cage and not paid at all. But according to Fabiana, one of the puppeteers, they want to get together and turn Stromboli in to the police for his misdeeds, and then organize a new puppet show that is fair and equitable for all of the workers. (And OF COURSE she's a young woman of color, and OF COURSE she's differently abled, but I can't even take the time to get into that right now...but it's another concession to modern times and being all-inclusive, but you know, it is what it is at this point. We'll pick up this conversation if I watch the new version of "The Little Mermaid".)
Anyway, if this is really a cautionary tale for actors, with Pinocchio representing the actors, then we just have to deal with the next act, which features a Coachman that takes young children away to Pleasure Island, where misbehavior is allowed. If you've seen the previous Disney version, you know that the children get to drink root beer and will be turned into donkeys, and then put to work in the salt mines. Umm, OK, I really have to stretch this metaphor a bit here, but the headlines in the past few years have been full of actors (and Hollywood executives) who have behaved badly, that's what the TimesUp and MeToo movements were about - so perhaps I could say this is another warning to actors, that once they get famous and get a little money that their fame will not allow them to behave badly in public, or even in private. So OK, the donkey ears are a symbol for being called out for their scandalous behavior, and the salt mines obviously represent prison, or worse, no longer being famous.
The final act here has Geppetto going off to look for Pinocchio (while carrying his cat and his fish, another one of many things that doesn't make sense - like, who carries around a fish in a bowl?) and then he sets out in a rowboat to Pleasure Island, and Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket and this new seagull character (don't even get me started...) have to water-ski out into the ocean to find him. And this is all so they can all get swallowed up by Monstro - who is now a SEA MONSTER, not a WHALE (because whales are now "good", not evil like they were in 1941, which is also ridiculous because whales are neither good nor evil, they're just animals). The symbolism here is easy, Monstro represents death, the giant sea creature that is waiting to swallow all of us eventually, either alone or in groups, but it's going to happen. Sure, we can do all that we can to try to escape from inside Monstro, we can spend time with our loved ones and we can bond as a family unit, but eventually, all of us, even the actors, will be eaten by the monster in the ocean.
So there you go, the film is just a bunch of life lessons for actors - don't trust your agents, studio executives are fat and evil and need to be taken down by unions, don't behave badly and eventually, you're going to die. Really, it couldn't be much plainer than that. Whether this film has any meaning for anyone who ISN'T an actor, well, I'm not really sure. Maybe just spend time with your family and be excellent to each other, because that's the road to being a "real" person maybe?
But man, I wish DisneyCorp could have said this without all the cutesy in-house references - like there are all kinds of Disney characters seen in Geppetto's cuckoo clocks, everyone from Donald Duck and Roger Rabbit to Maleficent and the Lion King. Ugh, Disney do you think maybe you could just stop sucking your own dick for five minutes? That's all I ask.
NITPICK POINT: Honest John is a human-sized talking fox, I get that this is a carry-over from the 1941 film, but he stands out here because he's the ONLY human-sized animal character. Sure, the seagull talks, too, but only Pinocchio and Jiminy can understand here, and she's just regular seagull size. Honest John and Gideon are human-sized animals, and they wear clothes, and it's just bizarre. Also, Gideon is a human-sized cat, and then Figaro is a regular cat-sized cat, how do they exist in the same universe? It's like the Goofy / Pluto conundrum all over again.
NITPICK POINT: Geppetto is just plain weird here - he builds clocks, but he won't sell any of them? Why even have a shop, then? How does he stay in business? Why does he also build a puppet if building clocks is his thing? Those seem like two different skill sets. And then why does he wish for the puppet to be a real boy? Sure, I get that maybe he misses his dead son, but that's a very specific and strange wish to make. But hey, Walt Disney authorized these plot points over 80 years ago, and apparently he could do no wrong.
The whole wishing thing is given way too much credence here - the "When You Wish Upon a Star" song just rubs me the wrong way, and I can't get around it. "If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme." Really? Nothing's too extreme? What if your wish is to take over the world, to be the next Hitler, wouldn't that be a little too extreme? What about serial killers, psychopaths and pedophiles, I bet they have a bunch of extreme wishes, should they get their wishes, too, if they wish upon a star? "Makes no difference who you are" - I beg to differ. Only the people who are pure of heart and make noble wishes should get their wishes fulfilled, or is that too hard to figure out? Who's in charge of wishes, anyway, who determines which ones come true and which ones don't? According to the song, absolutely nobody's in charge of this, and the whole system is chaos. "ANY WISH your heart desires will come to you." Somebody needs to put a stop to this ASAP, because there are people out there making wishes that we really don't want being granted. Just saying.
Also starring Cynthia Erivo (last seen in "Needle in a Timestack"), Luke Evans (last seen in "Ma"), Giuseppe Battiston, Kyanne Lamaya, Angus Wright (last seen in "See How They Run"), Sheila Atim (last seen in "Bruised"), Lewin Lloyd (last seen in "Judy"), Jamie Demetriou (last heard in "Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again"), and the voices of Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (last heard in "Glass Onion"), Keegan-Michael Key (last seen in "The Bubble"), Lorraine Bracco (last seen in "Riding in Cars with Boys"), Jaquita Ta'le,
RATING: 3 out of 10 mugs of root beer (another carry-over bit from the 1941 film, obviously in today's society you can't show kids drinking beer, so they changed it to root beer, but now it's not a naughty thing for the kids to do, so the gag simply doesn't work.)
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