Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Review: This movie happened, and it will never be gone

A musical drama film Directed by Guillermo del Toro is about a wooden boy seeking approval from his father

THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS LEAVE OR BE SPOILED.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Directed by Guillermo del Toro, is about a wooden boy brought to life by his father's wish, and the boy's goal is to make his father proud. This movie is a Netflix original film, but I watched it at The MoMA to experience the Pinocchio exhibit they are hosting and watch the film with a better screen, sound, and environment. Everything about this movie is perfect. There were no mistakes, and this is what you expect when you watch a Pinocchio film, this is far better than the Pinocchio classic that Disney put on in the 1940s. The setting is Italy during the 1920s-1930s when Benito Mussolini was in power. Pinocchio(Played by Gregory Mann) is seen by Podesta(Played by Ron Perlman) as a perfect soldier. In a way, Podesta becomes obsessed with Pinocchio.

Similarly, Count Volpe(Played by Christopher Waltz) becomes obsessed with Pinocchio, milking him for his characteristic of being a live wooden puppet. Cricket (Played By Ewan McGregor) is not named Jimney Cricket but Sebastian J Cricket, unlike the classic Pinocchio movie. This gives the film a feeling of originality. We don't need to repeat the name Jimney; all we need to know is that he is the conscience living inside Pinocchio, giving him good advice like "what happens happens and then we are gone". Gepetto(Played by David Bradley) was excellent. At the film's beginning, you can see how much Gepetto cares about his son even with the short 5-10 minutes that we know of them together, and you can feel Gepettos pain when you see his son die. Later in the film, Gepetto goes into a drunken rage and decides to chop down the pine tree he buried his son under and carve Pinocchio from it. It symbolizes from the ashes of his son comes his new son. Candlewick(Played by Finn Wolfhard) is the son of the obsessed Podesta, and Candlewick, at the beginning of the film, is jealous of Pinocchio. Candlewick tells Pinocchio to put his feet in a fire in an attempt to burn him. Still, later in the movie, when Candlewick and Pinnochio are in a military training camp, they talk to each other and figure out they are more similar than they thought. Candlewick and Pinocchio are just trying to make their fathers proud. Out of this conversation between them, a friendship sprouts.

While writing this, I noticed that jealousy plays a significant role in this film. Candlewick is Jealous of Pinocchio for stealing his fathers' attention, and Spazzatura(Played by Cate Blanchett) is jealous of Pinocchio for stealing Count Volpes' attention.

Another different thing this film does from previous Pinocchio movies is tackling death. Pinocchio, throughout the film, dies quite a bit and comes back to life each time because he is a wooden puppet that is immortal, but each time he dies, he stays dead for a longer time. When Pinocchio dies, he meets The Wood Sprite(Played by Tilda Swinton), and she gives him advice about death. Since Cricket is Pinocchio's conscience of light, she may provide more cynical advice. Overall every performance in this movie was outstanding. Usually, I'm not too fond of musicals, but this movie is an exception because every song had a deeper meaning that played a role in the story. Stop motion gave this movie a feeling of oldness with the lower frame rate, and I loved that. The best performance will go to Ewan McGregor as Cricket. Ewan just narrating the story made this movie 10x better than it already was, and it was a different perspective on Pinocchio because Pinocchio is not the only protagonist. This movie is flawless, perfect, and magnificent and deserves a 10/10. I highly recommend going to The MoMA in NYC to check out the Pinocchio exhibit so that you can experience and enjoy Behind the scenes look of the movie.