The Adventures of Pinocchio
By JK Sooja,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Scary live-action version has violence, guns, and monsters.
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The Adventures of Pinocchio
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Based on 2 parent reviews
The worst shrek movie ever!
THIS IS THE WORST SHREK MOVIE!!!!
What's the Story?
In THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO, an aging woodcarver, Geppetto (Martin Landau), builds a wooden boy puppet from a magical log and calls him "Pinocchio" (Jonathan Taylor Thomas). The boy comes alive and must learn how to be a boy and what it means to have a father. But society doesn't accept Pinocchio or his creator. In his search for belonging, will Pinocchio find Geppetto? Will Pinocchio overcome all the perilous obstacles, profit-hungry villains, and dangerous creatures life throws at him? Will Pinocchio become a real boy?
Is It Any Good?
This live-action version of Pinocchio from the 90s can potentially be very scary for younger and older viewers. The main problem in The Adventures of Pinocchio is that the impressive technology powering the animation of Pinocchio looks weird and is oddly off-putting for some reason, if not outright terrifying. And why is Geppetto's workshop so dark, shadowy, and framed like a horror movie? There's a fair amount of violence, some gunplay, and a rewarded shooting of another boy (a wooden Pinocchio, but still). Most disturbing might be when boys get transformed into donkeys and a man gets transformed into a sea monster. In this live-action version, human faces scream and contort agonizingly while donkey ears sprout from heads, eyes get bugged out, and monstrous-looking grotesque deformities pop up. The special effects used are certainly specific to when this film was originally released, but over time what this has done is oddly make those special effects scenes very scary. There is no modern smooth, soft, or shiny sheen to the representation of any transformation or donkey boy or sea monster (originally a "dogfish"). There are no animation or computer graphics tricks in use, which means that this version shoots for realism in its depictions of the above.
The performances are good and devoted to the period and the history of late 19th century Italy, but the writing and sequencing of the plot sometimes hold everything back. There are some logical jumps and issues of common sense everywhere, like when the film chooses when to have characters care or not about seeing for a talking wooden boy for the first time. For instance, upon seeing Pinocchio for the first time, a teacher catches him lying, which, as we all know, makes Pinocchio's nose grow, which it does. The teacher simply kicks Pinocchio out of the room. Meanwhile, Geppetto is sentenced to three years in prison for creating such an abomination. Lastly, there are a few issues of not teaching kids the right lessons. Here, Pinocchio saves the day by lying and gets revenge on his enemies by turning them into animals. Younger kids should stick with the animated version.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how the live-action nature of The Adventures of Pinocchio helped or hurt the telling of this classic story. Was anything particularly odd or scary about the animation or representation of the puppets? Anything odd about how everyone reacted to Pinocchio at first?
How did all the violence affect your watching of the film? Did you find it excessive or justified? What about the donkey and monster transformations?
Do you think the main lessons of the film were successfully presented? How might Pinocchio's behavior contradict some of these lessons? Like Pinocchio's actions in the throat of the sea monster or when tricking Felinet and Volpe into turning themselves into animals?
Movie Details
- In theaters: July 26, 1996
- On DVD or streaming: February 2, 2003
- Cast: Martin Landau , Jonathan Taylor Thomas , Genevieve Bujold , Udo Kier
- Director: Steve Barron
- Studio: New Line Cinema
- Genre: Family and Kids
- Topics: Magic and Fantasy , Adventures , Book Characters , Puppets
- Run time: 94 minutes
- MPAA rating: G
- Last updated: June 20, 2023
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