Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

It's unfortunate that Guillermo del Toro’s decade-in-the-making animated Pinocchio arrives on the heels of Disney’s hopeless 'live action' version, but this is a distinct improvement: the union of this gothic master and the Jim Henson Company delivers a fantastical and heartfelt reimagining of Carlo Collodi's tale, taking the familiar characters on new adventures. 

Geppetto loses his son Carlo in the First World War. One night, drunk and grief-stricken, he resolves to make a new child out of a pine tree housing Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor, at peak charm). His actions are noticed by Tilda Swinton's wood sprite, who takes pity on the old man and gives life to Pinocchio – but despite the best efforts of the conscientious cricket, this ‘real boy’ is spirited and disobedient. The moral of Collodi’s original feels out of reach. 

Much of the humour here is broad, with some macabre absurdism standing out in sharp and welcome relief, and the tale moves between high-action setpieces at a breakneck pace. The result loses some of the poignancy of the original tale. That said, the new and astute early 20th-century setting gives weight to the fairytale. Children are victims of two wars here – not only in bombing raids but in fascist indoctrination. In the face of this, the best action is often disruption and disobedience. Del Toro gives Pinocchio several encounters in which to develop his humanity, but neither director nor the little wooden boy loses sight of the beauty of humanity at its most rebellious and non-conformist.