Pinocchio Film Review & Synopsis (2022) | USA Today

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Even if we take it for granted that all Disney animated classics will eventually get live-action remakes, Pinocchio feels like an exercise in futility

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the film is so flat that it never comes to life, and it almost doesn't feel like it's making a leap into another medium

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In the fourth solo feature from Chris Hemsworth, the God of Thunder, with the help of his friends Valkyrie and Korg, battles Christian Bale's butcher god Gorr

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In theory, in such an endeavour, the live-action format should bring something to the material that animation did not

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Something that Disney achieved with great commercial success with Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Aladdin

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More recently, The Lady and the Fugitive has become one of the first Disney+ calling cards, reflecting a more modest scale and the realisation that the trick of animation and live action can inevitably start to yield diminishing returns

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But Pinocchio never feels like a live-action film, partly because of the main character's appearance and the computer animation; instead it's almost a reverse Paddington

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With several live-action figures - notably Hanks' Geppetto - embedded in animated environments, and even Figaro the cat looks CGI

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Hanks (who had a better year creatively between this film and Elvis) and Zemeckis have had a long and fruitful collaboration, from Forest Gump and The Exorcist to The Polar Express

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With which their latest work is most obviously comparable. Pinocchio

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However, unfortunately reflects the lifelessness of Zemeckis's early experiments with animation, and does not add much to the well-known story by adding fragments of music

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With the exception of Cynthia Erivo's "When You Wish Upon a Star", playing the Blue Fairy

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Zemeckis and co-writer Chris Weitz have made minor changes to the original story, but the basis remains the same: a lonely Geppetto wishes his doll (voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) to be reborn

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Sends it off to school, and triggers a series of incredible adventures. They come close to his encounter with Monstro, a sailor who has been given the status of "sea monster" because he has done enough damage to whales

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In addition, the film largely wastes the vocal talents of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Keegan-Michael Key, Jiminy Cricket and Honest John respectively

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[{"selector":"#anim-d21ae10f-95c2-484a-90f3-57bfa6c9d081 [data-leaf-element=\"true\"]","keyframes":{"transform":["translate3d(34.16834667812769%, 0, 0) translate(25%, 0%) scale(1.5)","translate3d(0%, 0, 0) translate(0%, 0%) scale(1)"]},"delay":0,"duration":2000,"easing":"cubic-bezier(.14,.34,.47,.9)","fill":"forwards"}] While this very calculated use of the studio's library is probably not worth expecting much more than a simple entertaining film for parents to share with their children, it is not without reason that one would have liked to see a little more dimension to the feature Pinocchio Image Source : Google

Pinocchio premieres on 8 September on Disney+

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