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Pinocchio

Overwhelming dislike
Based on 15 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 30 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Fantasy
Written by:
Roberto Benigni
Vincenzo Cerami
Carlo Collodi (novel)
Brendan Donnison (English adaptation)
Directed by: Roberto Benigni
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 25, 2002
DVD: July 15, 2003
Running Time: 108 minutes, Color
Origin: Italy / France / USA / Germany
Language(s): Italian (dubbed in English)
Summary
RATING: G for General Audiences
Starring Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Carlo Giuffrè, Mino Bellei, Kim Rossi Stuart, Alessandro Bergonzoni, Corrado Pani, and Vincenzo Cerami
Roberto Benigni brings one of the world's most famous and beloved tales magically to the screen. (Miramax)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Life is Beautiful The Tiger and the Snow
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
TV Guide Ken Fox
There's no getting past the shockingly poorly dubbed voice work of the English speaking cast; Meyer's voice is particularly shrill and grating.
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
The spirit of the late Federico Fellini -- with whom Benigni talked of doing the project together -- surfaces repeatedly. But that spirit fails to enliven a film substantially lacking in personality, energy, magic and humor.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
It's an oddity that will be avoided by millions of people, this new Pinocchio. Osama bin Laden could attend a showing in Times Square and be confident of remaining hidden.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Big, opulent and frequently wretched, Pinocchio is so bad that its American distributor, Miramax, opened it on Christmas Day with scant advertising and no advance press screening.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The most bizarre cinematic experience of 2002. So misguided as to be utterly mystifying, this shameless vanity project is almost surreal enough to be entertaining. Almost.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter
Benigni as a Pinocchio with 5-o'clock shadow and tufts of arm hair poking out from under the sleeves of his puppet costume, it borders on creepy.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Jay Boyar
The bottom line is that the studio's marketing strategy is just a tad incomplete. Instead of hiding Pinocchio from critics, Miramax should have hidden it from everyone.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
An unintended gift to midnight-movie programmers and students of the bizarre, Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio could have become a "Howard The Duck" -- or "Battlefield Earth"-like synonym for cinematic miscalculation, were its title not already so familiar.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Mark Peranson
This faithful, humorless, altogether insufferable (and, by all accounts, hastily dubbed) version of Carlo Collodi's 1883 fairytale about the trouble-causing puppet who longs to be human is the director's lifelong dream.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The recut American version is truly awful, but a good 75 percent of the awfulness is attributable to Miramax, the film's distributor.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
The only way his (Benigni's) show-off performance could have a prayer of working would be if the film were released as a silent.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Benigni's 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.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
Loud, crass and full of slapstick humor that the Three Stooges would be ashamed of. And it is almost completely lacking in charm and nuance.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
By film's end I was fantasizing that Peter Stormare would drop by with his "Fargo" wood-chipper in tow, but it was not to be. Appalling.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 2.5 (out of 10) based on 30 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Bob gave it a0:
One word review: SUCKS.
Mauricio B. gave it a1:
Too stupid, large and silly.
Giovanni gave it a1:
As a fluent Italian I find it bewildering that some have suggested that hearing the Italian version makes a significant difference ... Benigni's constant yelling was incredibly irritating, the pacing was tortuous, and the neverending parade of pointless set-pieces made me wonder if anyone ever asked anyone else "why?" during any stage in the planning and editing of this film. This film is a complete and utter failure in so many ways that I was embarrassed for its set designer and cinematographer ... that their incredible work went to such a narcissistic waste of time and money.
Buddy S. gave it a0:
Wretchedly dubbed, wretchedly acted, featuring a little Italian nutjob.
Die R. gave it a0:
Roberto Benigni must be stopped.
MicheleZ gave it an8:
First: watch the Italian version (with subtitles). Second: read the book!!! It was my preferred book whan I was a child and Benigni's Pinocchio is very faithful to the original. The match between the movie and my own imagination of the world of Pinocchio is very good. The Disney version is a very distorted one and it is a pity that all the critics think that it is the real Pinocchio! The only negative point is the presence of Nicoletta Braschi (bad actress, in my opinion).
Layne gave it a 0:
This movie is so bad it made me livid. Benigni actually assembled a team of actors to help guide this movie to the pits of horrific movie tragedies? This film is a trainwreck, and Benigni is so annoying and hyper-active that he will tire(if not scare) the crap out of you. He might as well have made a home movie of himself in which he bounced around and acted like an idiot. That is basically what this film is, an idiot party titled Pinocchio. What Miramax saw in this I will never know. It is charmless and appalling. I think I might go watch The Cat in the Hat again so I can heap it with praises: everything it did better than Pinocchio will get a grande round of applause, but that would mean the theatre manager would have to throw me out. They don't like you to clap through an entire movie. The thing that annoys me most is that Italian audiences adore this film! My brother and sister watched this movie and were bored to tears! To go from Life is Beautiful to this is an all time low. People will forever remember Roberto Benigni as the jerk who made this epic disaster. It is so corrupt, its stupidness seems deliberate and intentional, almost as if it wanted to torture its viewers. It did, and that is the only credit it will ever recieve. Pathetic excuse for a movie!
