Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio Already Earned A Near-Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score
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Guillermo del Toro has released his own version of the classic Pinocchio tale, and this one has certainly been far more successful than Disney’s attempt to add the live-action spin on its own animated version from 1940. The new Pinocchio movie that has been written and co-directed by Del Toro has been officially released on Netflix, though it was already available in theaters for the past two weeks. Based on 168 critic reviews, the movie is holding strong at 98% and is “certified fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes.
Almost nearly as impressive, the audience score for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio movie also has an 84% audience approval rating. This is completely the opposite of the Disney-produced story, which currently sits at 27% critic approval rating and 29% audience rating. Del Toro certainly knows his way around a story, and his spin on the Pinocchio story was completely heartwarming, though it was not without its creepiness and darker elements.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was also quite inventive, as it utilized a unique art style and stop-motion animation to bring the story to life. Also, considering the original Pinocchio animated movie debuted shortly after the events of WWI, del Toro decided not to ignore that fact, and to add elements of real-world history into his story. Del Toro also used a lot more of the source material from The Adventures of Pinocchio’s novel, which was written by Carlo Collodi in 1863.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio also puts a fresh spin on a story that most everyone knows, simply because of how popular the Disney animated film has been for decades. However, del Toro effectively took elements of the book and the original animated entry to put something together that truly shines. Also as previously mentioned, his dark macabre style fits in nicely, especially with how creepy Sebastian J. Cricket looks.
Considering that the classic Disney animated feature had plenty of songs, as is the case for most of the classic Disney movies, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio does not overdo the theatrical singing. There are some songs involved, but not enough to designate that the movie is a musical of any kind. Again, del Toro took elements from the source material, even Disney’s version, but made it his own.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was written by Guillermo del Toro and Patrick McHale and directed by del Toro and Mark Gustafson. Leading the cast as Gepetto is David Bradley, Gregory Mann as Pinocchio/Carlo, Ewan McGregor as Sebastian J. Cricket, Christoph Waltz as Count Volpe, Tilda Swinton as Death/Wood Sprite, Finn Wolfhard as Candlewick, and Ron Perlman as Podesta. This massively impressive cast helped to bring this amazing story to life.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is available to stream right now on Netflix, and the movie is also available in theaters. There is a reason why the new animated take on the classic children’s story is currently nearly perfect on Rotten Tomatoes and could be a strong competitor for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards next year.
