Pinocchio (2022) - Movie Review

In a small Italian village is the old lonely woodcarver wishing upon a star for his marionette puppet to come alive. And just as wished the blue fairy brings Pinocchio to live but he has to prove himself honest and good to become a real boy. So Geppetto sends his boy to school to learn about being good but Pinocchio gets sidetracked on an adventure with travelling puppet shows, a cursed island and a sea monster.

Pinocchio (2022) is the latest of the Disney classics to get a live action remake. With a few additional scenes and a little rewriting to make the story more logically connected it almost feels exactly like the Disney movie many of us know and love. It got the right feel and humour. At some points you almost believe Pinocchio to be a real living wooden puppet. There are a few details that does not feel completely right. Like Stromboli feels a little too soft. And the Blue fairy being a person of colour was divisive choice. But for me the biggest no-no they did was to alter the puppet show. The puppet show is one of the most classic parts of Pinocchio and to not recreate it to its fullest was the wrong decision. Instead they use it to introduce another character, a puppeteer and her ballerina puppet. Which are actually good characters except they are meaningless to the story. You could cut them out and it would not matter. And that proof they have only been added to be a diversity number.

All in all this new version of Pinocchio feels like an upgrade of the old Disney classic and is worth to watch. I am going to give it four and a half stars out of five. And if you do not want to watch it because the Blue fairy is now played by a black woman. I want to inform you that the Blue fairy was originally called the Fairy with Turquoise hair, which means that the tall blond Nordic woman we are accustomed too is also a wrong depiction of the Blue. But I do love the tall blond Blue fairy too.