Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson explore the true musical origin of one of the kids’ beloved fairy tales characters – Pinocchio, who navigates his way through mortality and other dark themes in — Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.

Released in the United States of America on the 9th of December 2022 by distributor Netflix, the film is delivered in a Stop Motion animation that can only be described as flawless, setting itself on a completely different level to its Disney predecessor which was released in the same year.

A father’s wish magically brings a wooden boy to life in Italy, giving him a chance to care for the child. However, the two of them have to struggle to find a place for themselves as Italy becomes embroiled in fascism.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my review, this film is done in a Stop Motion Animation which works wonders for the character of Pinocchio as it brings the wooden character to life both literally and figuratively.

The animation is so well done it’s honestly creepy, at times Pinocchio voiced by Gregory Mann appears to have life in it with its cheerful, enthusiastic personality and at other times just appears to be like a lifeless doll moving unbound by the laws of life from its unnatural circumstances.

Not to mention, for a movie that’s called — Pinocchio, the first thoughts that came to my mind were that it’d be something too similar to Disney’s which would involve your cliché storyline, about a wooden boy that would lie for absolutely no reason, never harshly giving you those true hard lessons but I was promptly silenced.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is not your average fairytale story and I would go so far as to say that this isn’t a kids’ movie.

This film addresses some remarkably dark content such as war, death, the pain of a parent losing a child, sacrifice, and so many more that there’s no way that you wouldn’t feel moved one way or another after watching this movie.

That’s not to say that the entire movie is eclipsed in dark themes, the movie has a comedic side to it with the character of Cricket voiced by Ewan McGregor who simply found the tree he decided to live in, only for that tree to be chosen as the body for Pinocchio and now he has to be the sense of good direction for the newly childish persona which proves to be more tricky than expected.

Cricket is always dealt the short end of the stick but it is through these hard lessons the message of the story peeks its face to us the audience.

You are never too old to learn something new, nor too young to die. It’s through Geppetto’s refusal to fully embrace and love Pinocchio like his son Carlo that he was reluctant at first but after losing Pinocchio once that the pain of being alone is illustrated to be more painful than opening up your heart to those that want to be a part of your life.

There aren’t many movies like Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio that are abundant with life lessons whilst portraying the sadness of grieve and beauty of life so well that it can be comprehended by both children and adults in one sitting, and that’s the value I take from this film.

I give Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio a 3.7 out of 5 ratings.

Let me know if there are any other stop-motion animations that you would recommend for me to watch in the comments section below.

Thank you for reading another review from, LSR.

Until next time, stay blessed.