Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A father's wish magically brings a wooden boy to life in Italy, giving him a chance to care for the child.

Directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson. Starring Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, and Gregory Mann.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is a stop-motion version of the famous Italian story. The narrative is a familiar one: a lonely woodcarver's marionette comes to life and gets into all kinds of trouble while learning moral truths about lying and greed and so on. I've never been a fan of the story in any adaptation -- I find it a combination of preachy and horrific in a way that is deeply off-putting to me. Del Toro's aesthetic is just the right combination of fantastical and unsettling to make this story work, for the most part. I didn't know this one was a musical, and the musical numbers are great, neither a traditional musical theater sound nor the pop Broadway sound that's permeated most of our modern musicals. These completely fit the style of the film and are just unexpected enough to keep them interesting throughout. Without giving too much away, I also really like how this one ends. It's not the typical magical happy ending that gets attached to the narrative, and it feels like a much more fitting resolution to this kind of story. This is probably about the best version of Pinocchio you can make, in my opinion, and it's well worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio > King Kong Escapes

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio < Anna Karenina

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio > The Romantics

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio < The Mummy (1932)

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio < Spellbound (2002)

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio > Panic Room

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio > The Intouchables

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio > The Circus

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio > Born Yesterday

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio > Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio > Invictus

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio > Man on Wire

Final spot: #1292 out of 3758, or 66%.