Robert Zemeckis is a renowned director of many well-known films, including the “Back to the Future” series, “Forrest Gump”, the animated “Polar Express”, and now the new 2022 live-action adaptation of the beloved 1940 film “Pinocchio”. Traditionally, a story of a naive young puppet who comes to life via a magical fairy, his father Gepetto who gets swallowed by a whale, and an overall message to be truthful.

While Pinocchio himself is still an animated figure in this version, Zemeckis’s film also stars Tom Hanks (who has previously starred in many of his other movies), as Gepetto, a non-animated character. The film also features other well known actors, Keegan-Michael Key- as an animated fox called Honest John- and Luke Evans- again a non-animated character with no name other than “Coachman”. It is a beautiful piece of cinematography, with a plethora of talent, and yet has received rather harsh reviews. 

Compared to the original Pinocchio movie, which has a 100% rating on the popular movie review site “Rotten Tomatoes”, the 2022 adaptation lost 73% of its rating, leaving it with an overall “tomatometer” score of 27%, as well as a 2.9 star average on google. This could be very off putting to the avid movie watcher, who understands the effect that a bad review can have on a movie’s overall experience.

I admit that such was my thinking. My opinion of Pinocchio had dropped without even watching a trailer; after looking at a profusion of 1 star reviews. However, I did watch the movie, and let me tell you- do not be deterred by any other reviews, for you may miss a fantastic rollercoaster of a film.  

We begin with a soliloquy from Jiminy Cricket… that ends up being a dialogue between him and his younger self. A strange choice to start the film off with, but gripping nonetheless. Jiminy makes his way into a quaint little shop owned by Geppetto. 

We see Geppetto working on a small wooden puppet, resembling a boy. In this case it is a specific boy that he is working to make the puppet resemble. On his working desk, there is a black and white photograph of a young child, presumably his son, to whom he sings a most depressing song called “When He Was Here With Me”. This song leads the watcher to realize that this boy is definitely deceased and Geppetto is creating a puppet in his likeness as a grieving mechanism. 

Hanks does a fantastic job of portraying the complex emotional state of Geppetto in this scene. He has evolved his character from a one dimensional old clock maker, to a man dealing with the loss of his child but still trying to put on a brave face for the customers that he meets daily. 

Geppetto puts the finishing touches on his puppet and names him Pinocchio. He then learns that his cat, Figaro, is afraid of Pinocchio and starts to taunt him by making the puppet stumble after him, all the while singing an odd little song. Zemeckis uses perspective shots in this scene to make it look like Pinocchio is trying to reach out to the audience; which I found rather unnerving, I must say. 

Given this upsetting detail and, quite frankly, very creepy scene within the first 20 minutes of the film, I knew this may be slightly different from the humorous, G-rated Pinocchio that we all remember. Not to say that the original wasn’t scarring in its own right. 

Moving on, Geppetto starts to ready himself for bed but as he does he sees what he calls “The Wishing Star”. He starts to make a wish on it but the audience never gets to hear what he wished for verbatim. 

And following this, a blue beam of light is emitted from the star, ricochets off of the old photo of Geppetto’s son and hits Pinocchio- who then starts levitating and is immersed in blue sparkles. He has been brought to life. 

This is as much of the film as I will retell moment for moment, so as to avoid spoiling anything important. The majority of the rest of the film follows the plot of the 1940 version but Zemeckis does a phenomenal job making it feel new, surprising, and much more dramatic- with some minor tweaks.

For example, the already disturbing scene where Pinocchio’s new friend, Candlewick (changed to Lampwick in the 2022 adaptation) morphs into a donkey after going to Pleasure Island- a blunt metaphor for the children being ‘jackasses’- gets exacerbated by Zemeckis in the new film. 

The memorable scene where Geppetto is swallowed by a whale, “Monstro”, is also included in the new film but it is extremely changed. He is made into a true beast. In fact, Pinocchio goes out of his way to tell Geppetto after it happens, that what swallowed them wasn’t a whale, it was a sea monster. 

Zemeckis’s redesign of Monstro is truly petrifying. Scales, spikes, tentacles, and razor-sharp teeth that close around Geppetto and Pinocchio leaving them no way to escape. They fight to make their way out and when they do, Monstro races toward them with the most fury and malice I have ever seen an animated sea monster possess. His scenes are enough to raise anyone’s anxiety level through the roof.

There are other portions of the movie that were so striking, they left me at a loss for words. Therefore I could not possibly include them in this article. How can you write about something that has left you speechless? I suppose you’ll have to ignore that 1 star review on google and watch Pinocchio for yourself.