Pinocchio

lovely if you adore the book and you are child. nice because it represents new meet with Nicoletta Braschi and Roberto Benigni. because Benigni deserves his Pinocchio . and this is the most important trait of film. a nice film. for the memories, for the flavor of childhood, for the invitation to rediscover the masterpiece of Collodi. many critics are justified about this movie. but it has its special charm. and this saves it from the unfair status of bad film. because it preserves the magic of original story. and this is not small thing. so, an adaptation. or only the Pinocchio of master Benigni.

The Italian language version is gorgeous and very faithful to the wonderful book. People make too big a deal out of Roberto playing a boy. He's quite good in the role and far more restrained than anything else I've seen him in, except maybe Son of the Pink Panther, which was pretty dreadful. That we are so hung up on the age of a man playing a living puppet shows how much imagination we have lost and how much baggage we bring into a film. It's sad to me that my kids won't be watching the film, because they are too young to read subtitles and the English language version sounds awful. I thought this was great.

First a warning - do not watch the dubbed release of this film - it's terrible. Watch the original Italian version with English subtitles - it makes all the difference in the world. Visually stunning while only partially flawed by Benigni's casting of himself in the lead role (you have to like him to like the movie), this film is wildly entertaining - more in the vain of Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausenthan the Disney classic Pinocchio.

nice. but not convincing. beautiful. but not enough. amusing. only for few sequences. touching. for good intentions. its sin - each viewer has his image of Pinocchio. and this image is very and deep different by Benigni work. his ambition to create the Collodi legendary character is far to be inspired. it is silly and too strange. because, unfortunately, it is not a joke but a movie , not a parody but adaptation of a great book. sure, poor Benigni is innocent. but his innocence, his desire to do a good work remains a failure. not for acting but for mixture between costumes, delicate images and his old humor recipes. he is saboteur of his labor. explanation - no measure of ingredients and the sparkles of ridiculous. but it is an exercise. not catastrophic. only very far by expectations.

Although far from a great film, this is certainly not the worst thing I've ever seen. I saw without prejudice and enjoyed it although I did find it full of oddities. I was very surprised when I looked it up afterwards and saw all the hate being spewed out, which is why I felt I should write this review. Sure it has some curious ideas such as: The boy Pinocchio played by a 50 year old man. Actually once you get over his age, he puts in a playful joyful performance which reminded me of Danny Kaye at times.

Bad dubbing. Not much can be said in defence of this, but the voices used, such as John Cleese and Glen Close are appropriate in themselves, it is just the bad syncing that is annoying.

Some rather cheap-looking special effects. This could certainly have been better but it is sad that people can no longer use their imaginations.

As said, these detract from an honest attempt to remake the children's classic. But why the hate? As many have said, I think that this is a much less sentimentalised version of the Disney, closer to the original story and some have taken against it.

All in all, children of all ages will enjoy this film and probably learn some valuable life lessons from it. See for yourself and make u your own mind.