Special Coverage Pop Culture Classics (The EW 1000)Sound BitesSummer TVBox Office Game
  • C+
  • D+
Pinocchio | 182732__pinocchio_l
SNOUT HEARTED Benigni smells up ''Pinocchio''

Credits

Release Date: Dec 25, 2002; Rated: G; Length: 100 Minutes; Genres: Comedy, Fantasy; With: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi and Carlo Giuffre
F
By Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is a film critic for EW

In Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio, the beloved/insipid Italian director and clown skips through rooms like a hypomanic elf while the gee-whiz voice of Breckin Meyer, who sounds about 30 years younger than Benigni looks, exclaims things like ''What a fantastic day I'm having!'' or -- after Pinocchio tells one of his whoppers -- ''Look at my nose! I don't like it, I don't like it! I don't want it!'' Even after you're done giggling at the nearly metaphysical disconnect between lips and words, there's the bizarre sight of Benigni being robbed of his voice, which was always his principal instrument of annoyance. His Pinocchio is meant to be adorable, but he comes off as less an enchanted puppet than as a harmlessly deranged middle-aged man prancing about in the kind of froufrou cream-colored pantsuit that Dinah Shore retired to her back closet in 1977. Would Benigni's Italian ''Pinocchio'' have been any easier to sit through than this hastily dubbed disaster? Hard to say, but the shoddy fake sets and general tone of rustic medieval rib nudging are enough to make you wish that someone would stop Roberto Benigni before he commits wooden whimsy again.


Posted Jan 03, 2003
 

Add Your Comments

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. You must have javascript enabled to submit a comment.
--
Change/Edit your grade
characters remaining