Pinocchio: A True Story is a Russian CGI movie based loosely on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. It was written by Vasily Rovenskiy, who also directed the movie, and Maksim and Vadim Sveshnikov. The film was released on February 17, 2022 after multiple delays caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The American English version, distributed by Lionsgate, stars Pauly Shore as Pinocchio and Tom Kenny as his creator and father Jepetto.
Young wooden puppet Pinocchio longs to leave the nest and see the world with his best friend Tybalt. When his father Jepetto reluctantly allows the boy to travel the world, Pinocchio sets out to follow his dreams and ends up joining a circus run by the sleazy conman Modjafocco.
Pinocchio: A True Story contains examples of:
- Adaptation Amalgamation: Downplayed, but a fair amount of the movie's plot elements and characters can seem slightly less out-of-left-field when you consider how much of it came from Pinocchio's Russian equivalent, The Adventures of Buratino.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In the illustrations for the original book, Pinocchio is portrayed as rather disturbing to look at, with gangly, segmented limbs, beady small eyes and a way too wide mouth. Pinocchio in this movie barely looks like a puppet and could be mistaken for just a regular handsome teenage boy.
- Adaptation Distillation: The movie leaves out many of the original story's segments, like Pinocchio's misadventures with the Fox and Cat, his trip to the Land of Toys and subsequent transformation into a donkey and his and Gepetto's being Swallowed Whole by the Terrible Dogfish.
- Adaptation Dye-Job:
- In the movie, Pinocchio is blonde instead of black-haired like in the book.
- Lucia, the stand-in for the Fairy with Blue Hair, is also a blonde.
- Adaptational Dumbass: While the Fox and the Cat were legitimately cunning and dangerous foes who managed to scam Pinocchio multiple times in the original book, this movie's version of them are incompetent bunglers who are never shown accomplishing anything on their own.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- While Gepetto in the original book did love Pinocchio, he was also kind of a Grumpy Old Man and a very strict father to his son. In the movie, Jepetto is an overall friendly old man and a doting father, whose only flaw is that he's a little overprotective. Even that is shown to be justified, as Pinocchio's status as a living puppet often paints a target on his back.
- Pinocchio in the book was a mischievous prankster who often failed to understand why what he did was wrong or underwent Aesop Amnesia after others cleaned up his messes. While the Pinocchio in this film still displays somewhat of a sly attitude, he's otherwise completely heroic and a genuine Nice Guy.
- Adaptation Name Change: Gepetto to Jepetto and Mangiafucco to Modjafucco.
- Adaptational Villainy: Mangiafucco/Fire Eater in the book was terrifying and rough with his performers, but turns out to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who actually listens to Pinocchio's plea to not burn any of the puppets for firewood and even gives him money after hearing about his father Gepetto's plight. Modjafucco in the movie is just a greedy hustler who couldn't care less about the well-being of his troupe.
- Adapted Out: And how! A good chunk of the original book's cast and arcs, like the Coachman, the dogfish, the cricket and Lampwick and the whole of the Isle of Toys don't appear in this movie at all.
- Become a Real Boy: Pinocchio wishes to become a real boy so he can be with Bella. He gets his wish granted at the end of the movie.
- Bumbling Henchmen Duo: Cat and Fox, Modjafucco's goons, are hilariously incompetent. Cat is a Trigger-Happy maniac and Fox is a Dirty Coward.
- Cats Are Mean: Cat is a Fat Bastard whose solution to almost any problem seems to be 'shoot it' and who helps Modjafucco rob innocent people.
- Coming of Age Story: Pinocchio is a young boy who leaves his home to travel and find his place in the world. Along the way he falls in love with a girl, learns that the world isn't always as wondrous as he imagined it to be and finds his true calling as a circus performer.
- Creating Life Is Awesome: Both Pinocchio and Jepetto are overjoyed by Lucia the fairy bringing the former to life and it is never portrayed as a bad thing that a wooden puppet is now a (semi) living thing.
- Demoted to Extra:
- The fairy played a much larger role in the book than she does in the movie, often acting as Pinocchio's conscience and eventually becoming a mother figure to him. In the movie she's barely more than a side character who Pinocchio seeks out for his goal of becoming a real boy, but who rebuffs him.
- Fox and Cat were villains in their own right in the book, to the point you could count them as Arc Villains, scamming Pinocchio multiple times and even hanging him at one point (don't worry, he survived). In the movie they're just Modjafucco's lackeys and not even competent enough to perform a single scam on their own.
- Disney Death:
- Downplayed. When the Cat sees Pinocchio for the first time, he freaks out and shoots him. While it does knock Pinocchio over, it doesn't actually kill him, due to him being a puppet.
- Played straight at the end of the movie where Pinocchio's injuries from the fire are so severe that he dies for real. Bella cries over his lifeless body and her tears not only bring him back to life, but turn him into a real boy.
- Dull Surprise: Most of the US-cast don't put much emotion into their performances, particularly Pauly Shore as Pinocchio.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Through a lot of trials and tribulations, Pinocchio becomes a real boy, a celebrated circus-performer and ends up with the girl of his dreams.
- Failed Dramatic Exit: Modjafucco taunts the constable that he won't be that easy to catch and prepares to run off - only to be confronted by another policeman, holding a rifle to his chest.
- Fat Bastard:
- Modjafucco, the Repulsive Ringmaster of the circus, who uses his performers to lure in and distract people, so he can break into their homes and rob them of everything valuable they own.
- Cat, one of Modjafucco's lackeys. He's just as rotund as his boss and just as willing to screw other people over for money.
- Furry Confusion: There's fully anthropomorphic animals like Fox and Cat, and then there are regular animals like Tybalt and Lucida's bird who can talk, but nobody bats an eye at it.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Pinocchio runs back into the burning tent to save Bella, despite fire being the only thing that can hurt him. He ends up falling from a great height and dying from his injuries. Luckily, Bella manages to bring him back through her tears.
- Hong Kong Dub: The English dub really doesn't try to match their new dialogue with the original mouth flaps, resulting in the characters' mouths frequently moving after they've finished talking. This is much more evident in the original International dub; with the Bang Zoom! dub making an attempt to try and sync the audio up better to varying, but often lackluster, degrees of success.
- Kick the Dog: When Cat realizes Pinocchio is in love with Bella, he mocks him and asks him if he seriously believes a relationship between a puppet and a human girl could work out.
- Lighter and Softer: This might just be one of the cleanest adaptations of the book. While there are some dark elements, like Pinocchio getting shot that one time, it's only played for Black Comedy. The movie emits most of the book's darker plot-beats like Pleasure Island and the donkey-transformation, the Cat and Fox torturing and trying to kill Pinocchio or even the brief time Pinocchio spends inside a giant dogfish.
- Losing Horns: There's a recurring "wah-wah" musical sting that occurs at moments intended to be funny or awkward.
- Love at First Sight: Pinocchio is immediately smitten by Bella and spends the whole movie trying to gain her romantic attention.
- Missing Child: The constable's daughter was stolen away by a human trafficker when she was still very young. And ended up bought by a Repulsive Ringmaster to work for his shifty circus.
- Papa Wolf:
- Downplayed with Jepetto. He is very protective of Pinocchio and willing to lie to a police constable's face to keep his existence a secret, but never stoops to actual violence.
- Tybalt on the other hand, plays this fully straight. When he catches the constable and his men restraining and gagging Pinocchio, he immediately jumps to his charge's defense and kicks them all to kingdom come.
- Brioni became a constable after his daughter disappeared and hasn't stopped looking for her since then. His persistence is rewarded in the end, when Bella is revealed to be said daughter and the two happily reunite.
- Pinocchio Nose: Averted. Tybalt tells the viewers at the beginning of the movie that Pinocchio's nose growing when he lies is a silly rumor people made up.
- Police Are Useless: Detective Brioni spends the whole movie looking for "suspicious people" to arrest and neither he nor his men are ever seen when there's an actual emergency that would require their attention. When he finally catches on to the circus being shifty, he suspects Pinocchio of being the ringleader instead of Obviously Evil actual ringleader Modjafucco. Subverted in the finale, where him and his men bust into the circus to arrest Modjafucco, Cat and Fox.
- Prone to Tears: Bella cries and/or whimpers a good 50% of the times she is on-screen; partly justified in that she isn't even a teenager and was separated from her biological parents when she was lost in the woods as a baby, and then sold off to Modjafucco so that she could later become an accomplice in his thievery. YOU would probably be a crying, Nervous Wreck too.
- Properly Paranoid: Jepetto is reluctant to let Pinocchio travel the world, as he fears his son's unusualness will get him in trouble. His fears end up coming true, as Modjafucco uses Pinocchio to attract more people to his circus and commit robberies while his performers act as distractions. At the end of the movie he briefly has to see Pinocchio suffering a Disney Death in the burning circus tent.
- Recycled Animation: The exact same animation of Pinocchio riding Tybalt and doing tricks is reused a couple times in the movie.
- Repulsive Ringmaster: Modjafucco is a hideous-looking, greedy ringmaster who uses his performers as distractions so he and his henchmen cat and Fox can break into the audience's houses and rob them blind. He also bought Bella from a child trafficker when she was small and kept her at the circus her whole life, not even trying to find her real father.
- Shout-Out: Jepetto briefly considers naming Pinocchio 'Leonardo', but dismisses the name, fearing it will turn him into "a selfish actor" or a turtle who is obsessed with pizza.
- Swiss-Army Tears: Bella brings Pinocchio back to life by shedding a tear on his body.
- Take That!: "[Leonardo] won't do either. He'd grow up to be a selfish actor!"
