Pinocchio

One of my personal favourites from Golden Films alongside Thumbelina and The Little Mermaid, and one of their most touching. Like the other animations from the studio, it does deserve to be judged on its own merits rather than to the book and Disney film(both of which are among the best of their respective mediums), that way it deserves a fair chance. The story is timeless and deeply moving, here it doesn't suffer from over-simplification and the ending is incredibly heartfelt without being too cloying. I did like the animation here, it is not the best animation I've seen but it is at least colourful and some evidence of fluency. And the music is wonderful, with a great theme in All For Me and All For Free and some well-incorporated classical music favourites like Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, Saint Saens' Carnival of the Animals, Ride of the Valkyries and Flying Dutchman Overture by Wagner, Debussy's Clair De Lune and Grieg's Piano Concerto. The script is humorous and charming, again not suffering from over-simplifying, and the characters especially Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy are endearing. The voice acting I had little problem with either, Jim Cummings voices a fair number of characters including Geopetto and Puppet Master and do a splendid job. Overall, a really touching Golden Film animation and deserves to be better known. 9/10 Bethany Cox

The book and the Disney version are of course better than this work, but this is not bad at all. It has many obvious flaws, like a simplistic artwork for the main characters, some inconsistencies in animation and the mishandling about Geppetto's earlier attitude. Its animation had scenes with big flaws, like when Geppetto didn't move his mouth when he was talking, a seller smiles before preventing Pinocchio from taking an apple or the scene at the Fairy's house which supposedly happens at night but there is a blue sky with clouds. However, the animation was mostly decent, had some fluidity and good drawings. The opening melody was beautiful.

The voice acting is very well done for a movie of this caliber, although Mangiafuoco's voice sometimes felt overacted. Among the characters, Pinocchio and Geppetto bring some sympathy, the cricket is not equal to his Disney counterpart but is okay and the Fairy is likable.

Aside from Geppetto's attitude of not getting surprised about Pinocchio being alive and to some extent Mangiafuoco's scolds to Pinocchio, the script is well written, avoiding the pitfall of weakening the story. The most positive thing about this movie is that it is not only entertaining, but also it has successful emotive moments, with some fun, sadness and heartwarming. This is the reason this film earns my respect.

It is not the best adaptation of "The Adventures of Pinocchio", but it has its positive things.