Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio | 2022 | PG | – 1.4.2

Why is “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” rated PG? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “peril/scary moments, rude material and some language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes many scenes of a puppet in danger and several acts of violence that leave the puppet with damage that is later repaired and other times leaving the puppet dead (it is revived by a magical spirit), a boy being killed in a bombing raid, a man dying from a fall, a man dying from old age, and some mild language and name-calling. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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A stop-motion musical reimagination of the classic story of the wooden puppet (voiced by Gregory Mann) that strived to become a real boy by avoiding temptation and telling lies, which make his nose grow (it is set during the era of Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy). Also with the voices of Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Burn Gorman, Ron Perlman, John Turturro, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, Tim Blake Nelson, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton and Tom Kenny. Directed by Guillermo del Toro & Mark Gustafson. A few lines of dialogue are spoken in Latin, Italian and French without translation. [Running Time: 1:57]

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio SEX/NUDITY 1

 – Jesus on a crucifix is shown with a cloth draped around his waist revealing his bare chest, abdomen and legs to the upper thighs. A spirit with large wings has a human female form and we see the outline of breasts (it looks like a sphinx).

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio VIOLENCE/GORE 4

 – A man and a boy leave a church when it rumbles and we hear planes flying overhead; the boy returns to the church to retrieve something and a bomb is dropped on the building, it explodes blowing the man back as he tries to go inside for the boy and we understand that the boy was killed in the blast. A puppet lies and its nose grows, two men grab the puppet and pull it until a truck approaches and the puppet is struck (we see it thrown, apparently in pieces, it is pronounced “dead,” and one man grieves over it). A man gives his son a loaded gun and tells him to shoot a puppet; the boy refuses and yells at his father causing him to become angry; he picks the boy up, yells at him and throws him in a hole saying, “You’re no son of mine” and the man is then shot in the face with paint splatter. A man ties a puppet to a cross and lights a fire under it; the puppet cries for help and says it’s getting hot, a baboon drags it toward a cliff as the man swings a flaming torch at the baboon, the baboon jumps on the man and they fight and fall over the cliff (the man crashes on a rock and we assume he is dead, and the baboon falls into the water and we see it later floating with a puppet).
► A puppet that’s missing part of an arm swims underwater to save a man as he sinks, unconscious; the puppet manages to surface with the man, and a baboon and the puppet also wash ashore, where the puppet is pronounced dead (the baboon spits out water with a cricket covered with slime); a spirit revives the puppet. A man is shown lying in a bed and we understand that he dies. A cricket lies motionless on a windowsill and it is placed inside a matchbox for safekeeping. We see the graves of a man and a baboon in a small cemetery.
► A man drinks from a bottle and becomes increasingly agitated, he raises an ax, cuts a large tree down, and carries home a large portion of its trunk that he carves into a puppet. A man carves, nails, sands and refines a tree trunk into a puppet and we see him using a rasp, cutting off a portion of the puppet’s finger with a saw, and a small hole is left at the position of the heart, where a cricket resides. A man files the nose of a puppet after it had grown long.
► A man with a cane beats a baboon with it repeatedly and yells, “I should’ve let you die.” A man with a sword threatens a puppet and cuts off part of its wooden nose. A man hits a puppet in the head with a cane and the puppet holds its head in pain. A man yells at a baboon and swings a cane at it in several scenes; he sometimes swings a sword at it also. A pre-teen boy growls at a puppet and the puppet hisses at him; the boy tells the puppet (made of wood) to move closer to a fire and the puppet’s feet catch fire.
► A priest and a military officer confront a man about a puppet and say that it will be a threat to the community; they say that the puppet must serve in a youth army to become a “model fascist youth.” A boatman with a hook for one hand and a peg leg yells at a man and talks about a huge creature in the water; we see many mines floating as their boat sails through and when a giant monster creature approaches the boatman jumps overboard and the man in the boat is swallowed into the creature’s mouth. A puppet and a baboon float into the mouth of a giant creature and we see them washing through its insides, including floating through brownish green liquid that could be stomach acid. A seagull steps on a pin on a mine and it explodes (presumably killing the bird). A puppet performs a song about war and preparing to be a soldier and changes the lyrics to embarrass the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who’s in the audience, and anger the circus master; Mussolini tells a soldier, “Shoot him,” and he does, killing the puppet onstage.
► Several creatures carry a coffin and sing a dirge while we hear something banging on the lid of the coffin; we see a puppet later and it talks to a spirit about its ability to come back to life. A man wakes up in a stupor, hears noises in the attic and investigates holding an axe; he sees a puppet that he carved the night before and is shocked when the puppet moves and speaks, the man falls back down a ladder and the axe falls near his head, the puppet comes down the ladder, picks up and throws items in the house breaking them and nearly hitting the man with knives; the puppet dances through the room wearing a chamber pot on its head. People panic and yell when a puppet walks into a church service and speaks; they accuse the puppet of being a demon and call the puppet maker a “drunken fool” while yelling that the puppet should be burned. Several characters climb across a puppet’s very long nose to reach the blowhole of a large creature hoping to escape; a man and the puppet fall and are eventually blown out through the blow hole with the others when the creature sneezes (they are all thrown through the air and land in the water). A giant creature flops onto a puppet and the puppet grabs onto a chain attached to a mine that wraps around the creature’s tooth and detonates it; everyone is blown through the air (the puppet is killed but revives later).
► A man drops a bottle of liquor that he has been drinking from, slips and falls on a ladder and lies on the floor asleep. A large pair of glowing wings appears and hovers in a room and a spirit (it looks like a sphinx, with a part-human form) speaks to a cricket about giving life to a puppet to help a man; the spirit touches the wooden puppet and it glows, shocking a cricket standing on it.
► A puppet performs a song about going to war and training to defend Italy; stage props shoot confetti as people in the crowd salute and cheer Mussolini. A man ties strings to a puppet’s hands and feet, and then cuts them while it is onstage to perform for an audience. A puppet runs away to join a circus and when he knocks on the circus master’s door, the man swings a sword at it (no injuries occur). When a puppet tells a lie its nose grows and we see it growing into a long tree branch with needles and pine cones on it in a couple of scenes. A puppet sits up on an exam table after being pronounced dead and stumbles when it walks.
► A cricket tells a puppet that it must obey its father and the puppet refuses leaving the house and following the man to church. A man yells at a puppet in a few scenes asking, “What is wrong with you,” and “Why can’t you be like Carlos,” and calls the puppet a “burden.” A cricket tells a puppet that a man’s son died and that he is in great pain because of the loss. A man yells and pleads with God asking, “Why don’t you listen to my prayers?” and we hear that a man’s 10-year-old son died and he’s inconsolable (we see him grieving by a grave in several scenes). We understand that a man’s wife died. A spirit talks to a puppet about having imbued it with a “borrowed soul.” Two men argue and one man demands compensation for a broken contract. A boy in a military camp says, “I’ll make him love me,” about his father. A man tells his son a story at night and one character is a witch.
► Several scenes show planes flying overhead and a few show bombings in the distance. A newspaper reports about war and Mussolini. Boys in a military training camp use guns that shoot paint and several people are struck with some being stuck in the face; two boys climb ropes to reach a tower and struggle over securing their flags to a flagpole.
► A baboon tries to smash a cricket with a book a few times; we later see the cricket flattened under the book, but it revives. A baboon on a roof loosens a tile that crashes on the ground next to a puppet (no injuries occur). A cricket is caught between cymbals held by a character in a cuckoo clock and it yells, “House of horrors” (it seems unharmed). A man steps on a cricket and we hear a crunch (we see it OK later). A large crucifix with Jesus on it is erected in a church and a man secures it and applies red paint to the head under a crown of thorns. An ironsmith hammers a glowing hot horseshoe in a metal shop. A spirit is shown with a tail, horns with eyes that blink on them, scales, a couple of slithering snakes attached to it and it glows and has a deep voice. A cricket is trapped under a glass, and when it frees itself, it is trapped under a hammer handle (it’s OK later). A cricket is squeezed while in a man’s pocket when he hugs a puppet.
► Glowing creatures float through a forest and they are identified as spirits. A cricket sets up an office inside a large tree; the cricket panics later when a man cuts the tree down with it inside. A puppet eats a lot of popcorn and ice cream and moans afterward. A baboon blows a raspberry.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio LANGUAGE 2

 – 12 mild scatological terms, name-calling (demon, diavolo, witchcraft, burden, dissident, independent thinker, nonsense, simian simpleton, boring, worthless mangy ape, old stubborn goat, ridiculous, petty grievances, coward, weak, ugly), exclamations (huh, bugger off, go away, shoo, ugh, uh-huh, hup, oh boy, how dare you, oh my word, freakin’), 5 religious exclamations (e.g. oh my God, unholy, a man says a prayer before a meal, people chant and pray in Latin in a church service, mon Dieu, the Lord will punish him). | profanity glossary |

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man drinks from a bottle and becomes increasingly agitated (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Being good, patience, mortality, obedience, parenting, Benito Mussolini, Fascism, consequences, destiny, the law, burden, pain, father’s pride, fear of the unknown.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio MESSAGE

 – Life is precious because it is fleeting, and life can bring great suffering.