#2 Pinocchio

Title: Pinocchio

Release Date: February 7th, 1940

Voice Cast: Cliff Edwards, Dickie Jones, Christian Rub

Plot: A happy wooden puppet, turned to life as a wish from his maker, has several (mis)adventures that include a greedy Italian, a cunning fox and a mute feline, an abusive coachman, and a monstrous whale. All the while, he is followed by a flustered cricket who tries to steer this new "boy" from right and wrong.

Review: Let me just start by saying that, unlike Snow White, I never saw Pinocchio as a little kid. That's a fact I only thought when I started the movie, but became dang sure of as the film progressed. How can I be so sure? Had I saw this movie as a kid, I think I would have remembered all the super-ridiculous events that occurred. Now then, on to the review.

The film starts off rather slow, really. The first 10-15 minutes are hardly anything to get excited about. Don't get me wrong, Jiminy Cricket's a fine storyteller; but there's barely a story to tell until the moment Pinocchio comes to life, which is where everything truly begins. And to much contradiction of this muted start, the plot is VERY eventful from there. In fact, it's almost too eventful. At first, it wasn't that bad. It was amusing to see John steer Pinocchio to Stromboli, and near heartbraking to see Pinocchio get puppet-napped with Gepetto searching for him in the dark, rainy night. It wasn't until the Pleasure Island-Monstro intersequence that I began to struggle to keep up. It wasn't difficult to understand what was going on, it was just a bit too much to comprehend. Prime example: Pinocchio's turning into a donkey, and goes home to find a note that his "father" has been eaten by a whale. For me, that was purely absurd. Despite clarification and even justification of this, I was still a bit critical of this part.

It's easy to see a nice, steady improvement in animation from Snow White. (The budget for this film was a little bit over $1 million more than that for Snow White.) Pinocchio is absolutely adorable. I couldn't get over it. His behavior kept me amused throughout most of the film. (This is probably because he reminded me a bit of my little cousin.) Musically however, the movie is a bit lacking. DON'T SHOOT ME YET. The major exception here is "When You Wish Upon A Star". This is probably one of my favorite Disney songs ever, and it's definitely a huge plus for the film. But as I said, the rest is nothing to get excited about. Even "Give a Little Whistle" feels a bit empty despite its catchy tune; the same goes for "I've Got No Strings".

One feature of this movie that cannot go unmentioned is its superabundance of moral values and messages. Just to list a few: fame is deceptive, temptations must be resisted, say no to drugs and mischief (or you'll turn into a donkey!). The two largest ones, without a doubt, are "keep your hopes up" and "lies grow." Ironically, the latter is what most people (or as it seemed to me) remember about Pinocchio. His growing nose is extremely iconic, as represented in all the Shrek films. However, similar to the Snow White princess scenario, Pinocchio's growing nose only appears in one short scene, which surprised me.

Speaking of surprises, the ending cutely threw me for two loops: Pinocchio's courage, selflessness, and honesty made him a real boy, and Jiminy finally got his badge. It's very small, but I didn't expect those details of the fairy's promises to make a return and manifest. But I love that they did-- in fact, the ending was probably my favorite part of the film, and one of the few parts I truly smiled. But, time to rate...

Hakuna Matata (It Means "No Worries!")

This was a difficult rating to give. I almost wanted to give it an "Under the Sea", but the clustered plot and lack of impressive music really gave it a hit.