Featuring the voices of Ewan McGregor, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton, and more, it’s now on Netflix.
To say that Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is unlike any Pinocchio story you’ve ever seen seems pretty obvious. Going by del Toro’s previous work, it’s also pretty obvious to assume the movie is darker and more messed up than previous dark and messed-up versions of the story have been. What might be less obvious, however, is how well del Toro balances new story threads and dark imagery with that crucial idea that has kept Pinocchio relevant for over 100 years—the love between a parent and a child—and how much harder it lands in this film because of his take.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio arrives on Netflix today (stream it here) and it’s directed by both the Oscar winner as well as Mark Gustafson from a screenplay by del Toro and Patrick McHale. This means, title aside, this is not just a Guillermo del Toro movie. The trademark style and vibe he made famous with films like Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, and The Shape of Water can be felt throughout, though. That’s in large part due to the fact this version of Pinocchio is told with stop-motion animation, giving it a tactile, lived-in, stand-apart feel even the best of the other adaptations can’t touch.
In the grand scheme of things, this Pinocchio has all the big story beats of the Pinocchios we know and love (or hate). A narrator and friend of the characters, Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor), tells the story of a woodworker named Geppetto (David Bradley) who creates a marionette named Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) which is magically brought to life.
