This is nominally an adaptation of the 19th-century picaresque children’s story by Italian writer Carlo Collodi that has yielded all manner of adaptations on stage and screen, from Walt Disney’s haunting if bowdlerised 1940 version to Guillermo del Toro’s exquisite, politicised 2022 Oscar winner. Collodi’s original story is so weird and rich it can accommodate a lot of free interpretation and tinkering, but this Russian-made version – first emerging in 2021 but on the UK distribution shelf since the Ukrainian invasion and consequent soft ban on Russian cultural imports – arguably goes right off the beaten track, up the mountain and away to lands unknown. Despite the subtitle, this is truly a sub-par story.
For starters, the puppet hero of this competently animated if blandly designed feature doesn’t even look like he’s made of wood, even before he gets brought to life by a visiting fairy who drops by to get pick up her repaired wand from craftsman Geppetto. Instead, he looks like a lesser singer in a cartoon boyband: blond-haired, blue-eyed and with perfectly bland features. There’s just the faintest suggestion of wood grain in his flawless complexion when shown really close. And yet he has the whiny, decidedly adult voice (in its dubbed English version) of 55-year-old actor-comedian Pauly Shore, who channels teenage rather than boyish desire for pretty blue-haired acrobatic chanteuse Bella, whom he meets while press-ganged into a circus run by her father Mojafocco.
Added to which, instead of a cricket sidekick for a conscience, there’s a very annoying, priggish talking horse named Tybalt (voiced by Jon Heder) who is also sort of the narrator. Nor is there any nose-growing, perhaps because this Pinocchio hasn’t the imagination or gumption to lie in the first place. A cat and fox, two key villains from the original story, are at least present, but unappealingly drawn and wearing Elizabethan ruffs for inexplicable reasons. Otherwise, there’s no Pleasure Island, no whale, and none of the acute existential anxiety about what it means to be a “real boy”.
The film’s single redeeming feature is the depiction and use of light, which is quite lovely. Almost the whole story seems to unfold at twilight, bathing everything in a warm amber glow; whoever was in charge of the light animation also slips in sun flares and glints at odd times that add a charming, Mediterranean tonality to the palette. Otherwise it’s all a bit dull.
• Pinocchio: A True Story is released on 14 July in UK cinemas.
