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Movie Review: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Mike Tyrkus

Although Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio may be the least “family-friendly” incarnation of the story released this year, it is, nevertheless, the best. The film is a sprawling epic that denounces fascism and extols the importance of family and, above all, the love a parent has for a child. It is, simply put, one of the best films of the year.

The familiar, and well-known, story follows the tale of a lonely, broken-hearted father – Geppetto (David Bradley) – who wishes that a wooden puppet he has carved in the image of his deceased son be granted life, and the subsequent adventures of that now animated wooden boy – Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) – as he searches for his own place, and meaning, in the world.

As with his other films, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is a marvelous sight to behold. Each scene seems to push the art form forward a bit farther than the last as del Toro and co-director Mark Gustafson take the art of stop-motion photography to the next level. There is rarely a moment when the events playing out onscreen are not visually arresting and intoxicating. Even the introduction of the fascist regime rampaging through Italy is less horrifying than it is transfixing, and polarizing. This is storytelling at its finest, courtesy of a perfectly paced and executed script from del Toro and co-writer Patrick McHale, as well as a powerfully told cautionary tale against letting such a state exist again.

Even though the animation techniques utilized in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio are the scene stealers throughout the film’s running time, the performances from Bradley and Mann (in particular, Mann), lend the proceedings a human element that it would possibly not have had if not for the performances of these two gifted actors. Similarly, Ewan McGregor’s work as Pinocchio’s ever-present cricket companion manages to lift the stakes involved in Pinocchio’s ascension to actual boyhood to levels not previously reached in earlier incarnations of the story.

Gregory Mann in “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.” Photo by Netflix – © 2022 Netflix, Inc.

Other notable characters breeze in and out of the story and steal their respective scenes; particularly the appearance of the Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton) and Sprezzatura (Cate Blanchett), as well as Christoph Waltz’s portrayal of the Fox. But none overtake the storyline or detract from the main arc between Geppetto, Pinocchio, and Cricket.

When all is said and done, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is easily one of the greatest incarnations of Carlo Collodi’s timeless classic and is, in its own way, already a classic itself.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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