Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

⭐ 8.5/10

(Originally written by Tim)

I really enjoyed this movie, mostly because ever 10 seconds I was wondering how they made it. Stop motion animation is so fascinating, and the level of detail and care makes something like this hard not to enjoy. I can't say I am super familiar with the story, so I liked some of the twists and turns. I found the opening 10 minutes extremely moving, and the level of emotion these literal puppets made me feels was pretty cool.

On a meta level, the idea of making Pinocchio a stop motion film is also kind of cool, a story about someone wanting something to be alive so badly. We watched the making of video right after and I just can't get enough of people pouring their hearts and souls into such a grueling art form.

Songs were good, and the story went to some places I wasn't expecting, but at the end of the day this rating is all about how impressive a movie like this is. Even the character design of Pinocchio himself is great, not exactly boy-ish and clearly very tree-ish. The spirit things, the monkey, just so many creative characters. I can feel the love of their creators pouring through the screen. I was going to compare it to Geppetto's love of Pinocchio, but I really liked how his creation comes through depression and the puppet makes himself hard to love. I love that Del Toro had a distinct vision for this story everyone knows, and this movie doesn't feel redundant at all. Wonder what his Hobbit would have been like...