Beyond the endless dirge cycle of Marvel films, no glut or craze or fad or cynical relentless onslaught of films has been despised by myself more than the ‘live action’ remakes of Disney classics. As a blanket statement that remains completely justified, not only are none of these films better, I reiterate with sincerity and fury that not a single one of them are actually of any quality at all. These are awful empty farces of films that like no other phenomena depict a draining of creative life from some of the most beautiful creative works of art ever made. Pinocchio is just as awful and may very well be the very worst.
Let’s first address one thing that of course does not entirely relate to Pinocchio, but does in some senses. The description of these films as ‘Live action’ may very well be the thing that has infuriated me most in this whole facade of faux creativity, not since the whole ‘director bullsh*t’ of Marvel creative’s and others commenting on classic 70’s influences and the like, have I seen such shallow and empty lies on a major marketing scale. Now of course Pinocchio does balance live action elements with animation and so the comment is more worthy here, but with so many of these horrid efforts the term is being used for completely animated films. Sure its life like animation in style, but it’s still bloody animation for crying out loud. I feel like Annie Wilkes! “It’s still cock-a-doodie animation! They cheated us! Do you not remember the original films, watch them, HAVE YOU ALL GOT AMNESIA?!”. “Well, Annie it is realistic animation to make it look ‘live action’”. “I know that mister man! They call it ‘photo-realistic’ too, I’m not stupid you know?” Zemeckis is the perfect fit I guess with his compulsion and obsession with this fashion of animation and the only reason this film is not getting 1/10, is because certain sequences are very well animated and for the most part it was the irregularity and the minority of moments that were not garish or awful to look at. But still this is not some beautifully composed work of computer animation, and it’s all in service of a horrid overlay of the original film, building out plots and diluting other moments all in an attempt to make the film better narrativley or structurally, one would assume, only of course to make the film feel at least ten times longer and more pained. This is a true horrid experience to sit through. I watched it with my sister on a plane and even then after a time the laughs between us at the film fell away and all that was left were two grown adults watching the 2022 Pinocchio on a plane. “Why do you even have to watch this?” She said. “Well, the review, and Robert Zemeckis, I guess”.
Stars show up for what I can only guess was conservatively a week of filming, and that is being entirely generous, and completely false in regards to certain voice performances. Tom Hanks as Gepetto is this broad bashful and very unintentionally funny turn, made even funnier by one of the bizarrest musical performances I’ve ever seen. His absolute refusal to even attempt to sing Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard’s similarly baffling and bad new songs is even more baffling than the choices to perform the old songs through gritted teeth and instead have a ton of new bad songs instead and as-well. Cynthia Erivo shows up and sings When You Wish Upon a Star as sensationally as you’d expect, but that’s that. No where enough to lift the whole awful drudging opening of this film. Joseph Gordon Levitt as Jiminy Cricket has this bizarre affectation of a voice filled with clashing lilting and touches of sweetness paired with dryness of wit, if you can call it that. Overall his character is another dud. Lorraine Bracco as a broad New York seagull made me laugh out loud, not intentionally, she was doing fun work. Along with Bracco, Keegan Michael Key as Honest John is having a good time and you can hear it, it is not infectious, but you can feel his effort. I respect that. I honestly do, in this film with such a vast cavern of effort at its core. Everybody is a dud, I’m sorry to be cruel, but for me this is a film that genuinely has no worth. I don’t know where the worth could be found, I don’t know how people keep thinking these films are good ideas, nor do I trust in any way shape or form the opinion of anybody who thinks these films are any good, nor anyone who can say without laughing that this abysmal remake fodder is better in any capacity to the original films.
A true 2/10 blunder. 2 points awarded for some solid animation but this is truly awful. Not a single redeeming performance, effective direction or overall solid sequence. All direction or animation of quality is completely pointless and painfully few and far between. This is a baffling entry in the horrific live action Disney cannon, which bit by bit continues its legacy of bastardising a legacy of creativity and creation. Of recent with my reviews of Ghostbusters: Afterlife (the final straw for legacy sequels) and Bullet Train & See How They Run (the final straw on knowing meta quips and bland comedy in every film) I have placed perhaps unfairly the burden of years of horrid trends upon films that are by far not the worst. Well with Pinocchio, this may very well the justified absolute worst of these legacy ‘live-action’ sequels and that is saying something, cause frankly all of them are abysmal.
P.S. And no, Beauty and the Beast live-action bullsh*t was not good. It was awful. I hate it. I’d write an article on it, but please spare me watching that again. Which in a sorts, leads me to my next post-script note.
P.P.S. My resolution for the new year should be to not force myself to watch films that I most certainly will not enjoy. But then I’m a half-assed critic. Same to be said for when to comes to these completionist directors career articles I’m penning. All its doing is making me watch five sh*tty films everybody hates and the hidden gems just are so few and far between. Of course the great woe of Zemeckis of recent is just how many of these duds we have received. Long gone are the things of quality. It is with regret and great sadness that this conclusion has been reached, please prove me wrong Mr Zemeckis, please, I’m sorry I didn’t like The Walk, but I loved Flight.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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