After Disney’s sweet but wooden remake, BRIAN VINER reviews Guillermo del Toro’s dark Pinocchio 

Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro

Qualification ****

Verdict: worth watching, no strings attached

Illustrious Mexican director Guillermo del Toro has added his name to the title of his new Netflix movie, either to please his gigantic ego or to distance him from Walt Disney’s Pinocchio, I’m not sure. Maybe both.

Either way, del Toro, whose films have been garnished with Academy Awards, by all accounts, has been yearning his entire professional life to have a shot at Pinocchio. But the man who made Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), The Shape Of Water (2017) and last year’s Nightmare Alley, all as dark as they are elegant, would probably never give us a watered-down version of the famous Italian folktale. written by Carlo Collodi in 1883.

Effectively, del Toro sets the story, rendered in stunning stop-motion animation, against the grim backdrop of Mussolini-era Italy.

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro has longed his entire professional life to have a chance with Pinocchio

Director del Toro offers some charming glimpses into the woodcarver’s happy life with his son, Carlo (voiced by young British actor Gregory Mann), before showing us its abrupt end in 1916 when a fighter plane, dropping its bombs , achieves a direct impact on the people. church and kill Carlo directly

This is a coup, actually, because the unquestioning obedience required by fascism allows it to make a not-so-subtle point that human beings behave like puppets while a puppet behaves like a human being.

In fact, Pinocchio positively exemplifies a refusal to conform, referring, at first accidentally, to Il Duce (‘the Leader’) as Il Dolce (‘the sweet one’). Enraged, Mussolini himself orders to shoot him. He’s a long, long way from Disney to be sure, though, to be fair, Uncle Walt didn’t stray from the story’s intrinsic darkness either. The 1940 movie of him scared me as a kid.

Del Toro has assembled a formidable voice cast, featuring Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz and, like a certain cricket with a conscience, Ewan McGregor. Veteran British actor David Bradley does a particularly wonderful job as Geppetto, the aging woodworker still mourning the death of a beloved son when Pinocchio comes to life to fill the void.

Director del Toro sets the story of Pinocchio against the grim backdrop of Mussolini-era Italy.

Pinocchio positively exemplifies a refusal to conform, referring, at first accidentally, to Il Duce (‘the leader’) as Il Dolce (‘the sweet one’).

Previous iterations of Pinocchio, from the Disney original to Robert Zemeckis’s live-action adaptation, introduced just three months ago with Tom Hanks as Geppetto, didn’t dwell on the old man’s loss.

But del Toro offers some charming glimpses into the woodcarver’s happy life with his son, Carlo (voiced by young British actor Gregory Mann), before showing us its abrupt end in 1916 when a fighter plane, dropping its bombs, achieves a direct impact on the people. church and kill Carlo directly.

I suspect aviation historians might chafe at this scene. But Del Toro won’t worry about that. He is censoring the war, a regular theme of his. And the tragedy also aids the narrative by leaving Geppetto a broken man, seeking refuge in the bottle until his puppet, thanks to the intervention of a benign wood sprite (Swinton, who also voices the sprite’s sinister sister , which represents Death), begins to walk and talk on his own.

Actor Finn Wolfhard (left) and Mexican director Guillermo del Toro (right) attended the New York premiere of del Toro’s Pinocchio at the Museum of Modern Art on December 6 of this year.

However, this Pinocchio (Gregory Mann again) is nothing like the colorfully angelic version from 1940. For one thing, he’s all swarthy and a little creepy, more like the Liam Neeson-voiced ogre of the trees in the 2016 film A Monster Calls. The shadow of another monster, Dr. Frankenstein, also hangs over this movie. Pinocchio is quite a bunch: destructive, disobedient and quite spoiled. It’s hard to love. But he makes her path to genuine filial love even more redemptive and moving.

Fortunately, there are also some laughs along the way. McGregor’s Sebastian J. Cricket, depicted as a genuine insect rather than a song-and-dance little man in a top hat, provides most of them.

And a Waltz villain is always a sinister delight. Here he voices the devious and brutal Count Volpe, owner of a traveling carnival, who sees Pinocchio as a meal ticket. Blanchett voices, or rather squeals, his long-suffering assistant, a monkey.

The best parts of the film diverge the most from 1940s animation. Pleasure Island, where the delinquent boys were sent, is now a military training camp run by a Mussolini acolyte (Ron Perlman).

These guys, by the way, don’t turn into donkeys. But there is a sea monster. And there are songs, although they do not enhance the film, and may even diminish it.

The stop-motion technology is wonderfully done though; Del Toro’s co-director is an accomplished animator, Mark Gustafson. A lot of experience went into making this film. But if I were to recommend it as family fun, I would expect my nose to stick out an inch or two more. This is a strictly adult Pinocchio.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is already on Netflix.

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Classification ***

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Qualification ***

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