Pinocchio (2022)

Disney's incomprehensible craze of making live-action versions of old cartoons continues. This time, one of the best cartoons of all time has been modernized by Robert Zemeckis, the man behind Forrest Gump, Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future and a whole host of other successes. I'm a big fan of Zemeckis, but here he has messed up, or the task has simply been impossible, because you can't help but compare the result to Disney's wonderful hand-drawn masterpiece from 1940, which even the best CGI effects can't possibly match. Technically, there's not much to nitpick, but there's things in the script that I really don't like: It introduces new, superfluous characters that aren't in the original, and the eagerly awaited ending disappoints badly (I can't say more without giving away too much). Tom Hanks does his best as Geppetto, but even though he can't hit a note, he's been given lyrics that he ends up singing tonelessly. It's simply pathetic. And it's even more pitiful that the fairy godmother, who gives life to the wooden doll, has for some reason been made bald as an eight ball. Other characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli, Mikkel From and Gideon the cat work well, but it can't change the overall impression that one of the world's best directors has finally succeeded in making a piece of uninspired crapola that falls short of the original. Watch or rewatch that one instead.