Disney’s mix of live action and CGI remake of Pinocchio (2022, directed by Robert Zemeckis) of the 1940 original, is another in a long list of live action/CGI remakes that are vastly inferior to the originals they’re based on.

The story follows Pinocchio (voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), a wooden puppet created by a lonely old wood carver named Geppetto (Tom Hanks).

 One night while Geppetto is wishing upon a shooting star for a son. His wish is granted by the Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo), who puts life into the wooden puppet.

In order for Pinnocchio to become a real boy however he must learn bravery, loyalty, and honesty. 

To help him succeed, The Blue Fairy assigns a wandering cricket, named Jiminy Cricket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), to act as Pinocchio’s conscience and keep him on the straight-and-narrow. 

Going over the few positives the film has, the acting isn’t bad. Special mention goes to Tom Hanks and Joseph Gordan-Levitt.

Hanks does great with emotional scenes making the audience sympathize and feel for him, and even manages to get a laugh with one of his line readings, when he learns about what Pinocchio has been up to throughout the movie.

Joseph Gordan-Levitt’s Jiminy is so on point, that unless a person looked it up or knew beforehand, they probably wouldn’t know it was him.

Moving off of acting, the sets of the film are well done and very imaginative. There are many complex set pieces that looked like it took hours to set up with large amounts of background actors needing to be hired.

However, aside from those two, the rest of the film ranges from, simply bad, to so mediocre that it’s not worth mentioning, or at best, not as good as the original.

The first big problem this remake has is that, even though it follows the original film’s plot, it completely misses the point. 

In the original story, Pinocchio actually had to learn to be brave, loyal, and honest.

In the 1940 film, while Pinocchio meant well, he didn’t know right from wrong, hence why he needed Jiminy and why he got into trouble when Jiminy wasn’t around or didn’t listen to him. In the remake, however, he already knows right from wrong, he’s practically a saint. 

A good example of this divergence between the films is when Pinocchio arrives on Pleasure Island. In the original Pinocchio gets sucked into the festivities, actually partakes in some of them, and even gets drunk on the beer they’re offering. 

In the remake however, not only does he not partake in any of the festivities, he’s horrified at all the mayhem, knows it’s wrong, and only takes a few sips of root beer. 

The remake also misses the point of this section of the story by turning the beer into root beer, because if Pinocchio knew right from wrong, he wouldn’t drink the beer. But even if Pinocchio did know right from wrong, he’d still probably drink the root beer because there’s nothing inherently harmful in drinking root beer (despite what his dentist would say.)

Also, because he already knows right from wrong, this demotes Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio’s conscience to a walking dictionary.

The second big problem is that, what little this version adds to the original isn’t very good.

One major change they add, is a romance for Pinochio with a puppeteer named Sabina (Jaquita Ta’le).

But the problem is while it looks like it might go somewhere kind of interesting, or propel the film into a different direction from the original, by the end of the film it doesn’t end up adding anything of worth to the film.

There are also small changes, like a scene of Pinocchio not knowing what poop is and smelling it (which I’m sure we can all agree was the one thing missing from the original.) 

Another small example is when Honest John (Keegan-Michael Key) tries to convince Pinocchio to join the circus. He says Pinocchio could become an “influencer” and comes up with “Chris Pine” as a stage name for (by comparison imagine if Honest John called him John Wayne in the original.)

The problem with these changes is that, while small, they date the movie, instead of allowing it to become a timeless classic like the original.

The third major problem with the remake is that at several points the CGI for Pinocchio looks bad and doesn’t blend in with the scene. The two main culprits are the lighting and costume design. 

The first culprit, the lighting, comes from the fact that there are scenes where the CGI puppet’s shadow doesn’t match with shadows in the scene, or has a light shot onto it from a light source that shouldn’t exist.

The second culprit, the costume design, comes from the fact that while the costumes for the human characters are colorful, they are very muted and down to earth. In contrast, Pinocchio’s colors are very bright. This difference in brightness causes the two of them to not properly mix, making Pinnochio stand out like a sore thumb.

Overall, the biggest problem with this retelling of Pinocchio is that, in the end, the changes don’t justify its existence. This remake doesn’t take the Disney classic and put a new spin on it. It essentially copies and pastes the original’s story, but completely misses the point and loses all of its charm.