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Pinocchio
Metascore
11 out of 100

Overwhelming dislike - based on 15 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 15
  3. Negative: 13 out of 15
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  1. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    40
    There's no getting past the shockingly poorly dubbed voice work of the English speaking cast; Meyer's voice is particularly shrill and grating.
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: David Rooney
    40
    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.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    30
    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.
  4. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    25
    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.
  5. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Edward Guthmann
    25
    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.
  6. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Jennie Punter
    25
    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.
  7. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Jay Boyar
    25
    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.
  8. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Dan Fienberg
    20
    Visually sumptuous but intellectually stultifying.
  9. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    10
    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.
  10. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Mark Peranson
    10
    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.
  11. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    10
    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.
  12. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    10
    The recut American version is truly awful, but a good 75 percent of the awfulness is attributable to Miramax, the film's distributor.
  13. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    0
    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.
  14. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    0
    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.
  15. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    0
    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.
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