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Titular Character
Pinocchio
Voiced by: Benjamin Evan Ainsworth
Portrayed by: Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (human form)
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Since he's a puppet, Pinocchio can rotate his head with no ill effects.
- Adaptation Personality Change: Pinocchio in the original film enjoyed his time at Pleasure Island and had fun doing bad stuff. Here, the Pleasure Island portion of the story has more focus on peer pressure and how Pinocchio agrees to go there even if he doesn't really want to. He likes it only at first, but very quickly becomes visibly uncomfortable due to the other kids' chaotic and callous behaviour, especially when he sees the contempt corner attraction and witnesses many clocks being destroyed at the clock stoppers attraction. It should be noted that Pinocchio is generally more distrustful of "real" people and becomes less gullible more quickly than the original version as a result of his bad experiences (as in this version even the school's headmaster treats him very poorly and kicks him out just for not being a human kid), at one point even believing he can only trust his father. Indeed, even if Fabiana turns out to be a good person, Pinocchio is more comfortable to talk to her if she interacts through her puppet, Sabina.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Due to meeting many bad people, Pinocchio grows less naive and much more distrustful of "real" people (with the exception of Geppetto) and is more comfortable talking to Fabiana's puppet Sabina, though he comes to believe Fabiana is a good person too. There is also more emphasis on people treating him different and even bullying him for being a puppet and he is also peer pressured to go to the Pleasure Island in this version.
- Adaptational Intelligence: This version of Pinocchio is actually smarter compared to his 1940 animated counterpart, as he takes advantage of his Pinocchio Nose to reach the key and free himself from his cage with Jiminy's help, or immediately can tell that Pleasure Island is anything but "pleasure".
- Become a Real Boy: This is Pinocchio's goal after he's brought to life. However, this is left to interpretation at the end, as Pinocchio is seen becoming a real boy, but the transformation on-screen is not fully visible, happens in the distance, and may be metaphorical.
- Chekhov's Skill: During Stromboli's show, Pinocchio burns his feet after dancing too quickly on the wooden stage. He uses this skill to create a fire and escape Monstro's body at the end of the film. In the animated film, he burns his finger on a candle minutes after being brought to life.
Allies
Jiminy Cricket
Voiced by: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
- Adaptation Personality Change: Jiminy Cricket starts off as a lazy and irresponsible guy but his character develops the moment he is appointed as Pinocchio’s conscience.
- Adaptational Jerkass: In this version, before becoming Pinocchio’s “temporary” conscience, he’s an arrogant, lazy wanderer with no purpose in life.
- Fourth-Wall Observer: He is this, as he would interact with the viewers in the film.
- Interactive Narrator: As the narrator of the film, Jiminy starts the film by having a conversation with the in-story version of himself.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite being a lazy and arrogant cricket, he does care for Pinocchio.
Geppetto
Portrayed by: Tom Hanks
- Abled in the Adaptation: In the original movie, Geppetto always wore glasses due to his old age. But in the remake, he doesn't need to wear glasses to see, he only wears his glasses when he works in his workshop.
- Adaptation Personality Change: Geppetto is less of a bumbling father to a Papa Wolf when his own son goes missing.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In this adaptation, he lost both his son and wife for unknown reasons, and shapes Pinocchio using a photo of his late son as a reference.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Tom Hanks uses an Italian accent for Geppetto, but drops it several times throughout the film and speaks in his actual voice.
Cleo
Figaro
Sofia
Voiced by: Lorraine Bracco
- Canon Foreigner: She was created exclusively for this film, as she has no other counterpart in the original.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Flees the scene as quickly as she can when Monstro shows to swallow Pinocchio, Geppetto, Figaro, and Cleo.
Fabiana
Portrayed by: Kyanne Lamaya
A former dancer who used to work for Stromboli.
- Career-Ending Injury: She’s heavily implied to be a former ballerina before a leg injury forced her to quit. Now she’s dedicated to follow her passion through puppetry with the help of her ballerina-like puppet, Sabina.
- Nice Girl: She wishes Pinocchio good luck before the start of his show and was willing to help free the wooden boy when Stromboli locks him up in a cage. She's also perceptive enough to notice that Pinocchio is more comfortable with puppets and so uses hers as a means of interacting with him.
Sabina
Voiced by: Jaquita Ta'le
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: She not only is able to move far more fluidly and into positions that would be extremely difficult if not impossible for a puppeteer to pull off with a marionette that is not custom built for each of those particular poses, not to mention that Sabina is able to blink and furrow her brow, and has her own voice actor and has been shown to speak independently of Fabiana, whether or not this is just dramatization or an indication of Sabina being more then she first appears is left unknown.
Villains
Honest John
Voiced by: Keegan-Michael Key
- Ambiguous Situation: While the scene was not in the film, it is possible he and Gideon like the original film helped the Coachman capture the children via bribery. However, in the original film they were initially reluctant to help the Coachman due to their clear fear of being caught and punished by the law for having any business and involvement with Pleasure Island, and the only boy they collected for the Coachman was Pinocchio.
- Boring, but Practical: He uses a simple glass bottle to trap Jimminy so he can't interfere with convincing Pinocchio to be an actor. This proves to be pretty effective, as the cricket is unable to escape for a long time.
- Jerkass Has a Point: He surely tries to con Pinocchio to become an actor for his own shady reasons during their second meeting, but he is right when he points out to the wooden boy that he followed Geppeto's commands to go to school and was kicked out for no fault of his own by the closed-minded Headmaster.
- Karma Houdini: He suffers no consequences for trapping Jimminy cricket on a Jar, nor convincing Pinocchio to become an actor for his own shady reasons.
- Large Ham: He speaks in a very over the top manner and constantly raises his voice.
Gideon
- Adaptational Sexuality: In this version, Gideon's mallet has a heart carved in it with "G + HJ" inside it, implying he has a (most likely one-sided) crush on his boss.
- Karma Houdini: Like his master, he suffers no consequences for his bad deeds.
- The Silent Bob: He doesn't speak a line in the movie, not even making hiccups.
Stromboli
Portrayed by: Giuseppe Battiston
- Adaptational Karma: Unlike his animated counterpart where he gets away with Pinocchio's money though losing forever his main star and probably the money he got previously due to his loss, here he gets arrested by the carabinieri for his cruelty towards his employees, is put into jail and Fabiana takes over his show.
- Bad Boss: Very much so. He doesn't tolerate his employees puppeteering outside of his show, and he cages Pinocchio to make sure he wouldn't escape and lose his money.
- Fat Bastard: As in the original film, Stromboli is seen as this here, who looks incredibly rotund by human standards and then later throws Pinocchio into a cage.
- Large Ham: When he introduces Pinocchio during his show.
Coachman
Portrayed by: Luke Evans
- Adaptational Attractiveness: While he's unlikely to win any beauty prizes, the Coachman is no longer a Fat Bastard thanks to being played by Luke Evans.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- As shocking as it is that this possibly could apply to a character who is thought to quite possibly be the devil himself, it does as he not only punishes bad children but also uses peer pressure to entrap otherwise good children who are only reluctantly going along to Pleasure Island in hopes of a fun time. In general, he seems like a human who's made a bargain with demons rather than a demon himself, which only makes him more contemptible.
- As his version of Pleasure Island invites naughty girls too, this means that he probably captured even more children than in the original movie, which only transformed naughty boys, making him even worse than he already is.
- Age Lift: In the original movie, the Coachman was a fat old man, but in the remake, due to Adaptational Attractiveness, the Coachman is played by Luke Evans, a handsome young man.
- Beauty Inversion: Luke Evans looks rather unkept and with a prominent overbite in his role as the Coachman.
- British Teeth: The Coachman, now depicted with a "mysterious" and unkempt look, has quite the crooked smile.
- Casting a Shadow: He's seems to be in command of his goons, which in this itteration seems to be made out of darkness and smoke rather than being in a shape similar to a gorilla.
- Karma Houdini: He still gets away with kidnapping children and turning them into donkeys to sell them far away from their families. Even not getting Pinocchio before the latter manages to escape is treated more as a minor setback that probably won't stop him to kidnap and turn children into donkeys.
- Lean and Mean: In this version, he is a lean young man, but even more evil than his 1940 counterpart.
- Would Hurt a Child: It's the Coachman, this is a given. This version including naughty girls as well means that he actually traps more victims than in the original.
Monstro
- Adaptation Species Change: In the original film, Monstro was some kind of a sperm whale, but in this film he seems to be some kind of sea monster with vaguely whale-like traits as he also has fish-like fins and tentacles as well as more closely resembling a pliosaur or mosasaur.
- Evil Laugh: He gives a sinister chuckle as he chases Pinocchio and Geppetto's boat. In the original animated movie, he briefly smiles maliciously.
- Final Boss: Like the original film, Monstro serves as the final antagonist in this film.
- Meaningful Name: Given his Adaptation Species Change as mentioned above, he more than lives up to his name at this point.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: He looks like a cross between a whale, a mosasaur, and an octopus, as well as some features of the "Terrible Dogfish" from the original book.
- Tentacled Terror: He is a giant sea monster with several tentacles. He never uses them to attack anyone, but they probably help him swim faster.
Others
The Blue Fairy
Portrayed by: Cynthia Erivo
- Bald Mystic: While not bald per se, the Blue Fairy is depicted as having a very short hairdo coated with fairy dust. Not surprising, as this is Cynthia Erivo's signature look.
- Demoted to Extra: She has less screen time in this film than she did in the original, as she only appears in the scene where Pinocchio comes to life and doesn't show up again after that, not even appearing in Stromboli's caravan.
- Race Lift: In the original film, the Blue Fairy was a blonde white woman. Here, she is Black and has a shaved head.
Lampwick
Portrayed by: Lewin Lloyd
- Adaptation Personality Change: He starts off as a trustworthy friend to Pinocchio as shown when the pair go on a toboggan ride and boat together. However, Lampwick shows his true face when he starts to demolish Pleasure Island with a catapult, while a shocked Pinocchio looks on in horror in contrast to the original film where Lampwick was already revealed to be a trouble maker such as sling shooting the donkeys pulling the coach, willing to hit someone just for amusement and smashing a window while Pinocchio had no problem with it and even joins him doing these bad things.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: He has dark brown hair in this version instead of red hair like the original movie.
- Adaptational Jerkass: In the animated movie, he was just an hedonistic brat who shows some genuine care for Pinocchio. Here, he's a proud jerk who, not only peer-pressured Pinocchio to come with the other kids on Pleasure Island when the latter was hesitant to go, but also shows no sympathy for Pinocchio's obvious discomfort at watching kids destroying things, hurting each other, and "making a jackass out of themselves".
- Body Horror: Once again we witness Lampwick turning into a donkey.
- I Want My Mommy!: The last thing Lampwick says before his complete transformation into a donkey is him crying out for his mama.
- Precision F-Strike: He retains the "What do I look like to you, a jackass?" line in this movie.
The Stupid Little Boys and Girls
- Adaptational Diversity: There were only boys at Pleasure Island in the original. In this film, there are also girls. All of them are also several different races.
- Adaptational Heroism: Some of the children are good children that only went to the island to have fun.
Headmaster
Portrayed by: Jamie Demetriou
The headmaster of school.
- Fantastic Racism: Kicks Pinocchio out because of him being a puppet.
- Would Hurt a Child: Despite being a school teacher, he shows no problem in literally kicking Pinocchio out of his school. Granted, Pinocchio was a puppet at that moment, but still looked and acted like a child.
Signore Rizzi
Portrayed by: Angus Wright
Signora Vitelli
Portrayed by: Sheila Atim
- Spear Carrier: Only shows up once with some children making their way to school, and never again.
