Digital metamorphosis of Disney classic Pinocchio dares to remain dark | Movie reviews

reviewOur film editors will guide you through the current range. What must you see and why? From today on the streaming platform Disney+: the remake of the animation classic Pinocchio with Tom Hanks as Geppetto.

Pinocchio

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    Youth film

We’d better stop saying that ‘live-action remakes’ of classic cartoons, which mainly do their best visually to stay as close as possible to the original, have little added value. And that it is sometimes almost an insult to the more timeless medium of animation. Disney will still make them. Among other Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King have already undergone a digital metamorphosis with actors wandering in computer worlds and there are many more to come, including soon The little Mermaid.

The new Pinocchio by director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back To The Future) in any case retains the complexity of the story about a doll who raises awareness during his odyssey, but tries to resist countless temptations along the way. The dark edge has also remained. From the visit to the sinister Pleasure Island (actually a paradise for child molesters) you also get an almost nauseous feeling in this version. Fortunately, fairy tales can now also serve young viewers more than just sweets.

Less successful are the added new songs and Tom Hanks as Geppetto acts (just like last in Elvis) as if he’s back on the elementary school boards. He has no idea what tone to strike. And aesthetically it may all be slick, in some scenes there are hardly any people, which makes you wonder again whether the animation film from then was not sufficient. But we would no longer draw that conclusion.

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis. Starring: Tom Hanks, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Cynthia Erivo


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