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Pinocchio | 2002 | G | - 0.3.1

Live-action retelling of the Italian children's classic, written by, directed by, and starring Italian comic Roberto Benigni. A magical piece of pine makes its way to elderly craftsman Gepetto (Carlo Guiffre) who turns it into a puppet. The puppet (Benigni) is desperate to become a real boy and despite the benevolent guidance of the Blue Fairy (Nicoletta Braschi) and Gepetto, Pinocchio gets into one scrape after another. Also with Bruno Arena, Peppe Barra, Mino Bellei and Max Cavallari. Jarringly dubbed in English with the voices of Breckin Meyer, Glenn Close, John Cleese, Eric Idle, David Suchet, Cheech Marin, et al. [1:48]

SEX/NUDITY 0 - A puppet yells "I'm naked" when a man opens his shop door.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - A donkey lies on a bed of hay and dies. A group of boys and a puppet fight over a hat, one boy is hit in the head by a book and he falls to the ground saying, "I'm dying." A puppet tries repeatedly to hit a cricket with a mallet, and a puppet seems tired and ill. Two men chase a puppet, and two men wearing cloaks chase a puppet, one grabs him the other threatens him with a knife and we see them hoisting him by a rope into the limbs of a tree where he dangles. An elderly man tips out of his boat into the sea and a puppet jumps in to try to save him. A puppet finds the grave of a friend and grieves. A man shoots a gun in the air, and a donkey falls to the ground playing dead. A man kicks a donkey, the donkey stumbles and falls to the ground, two men carry him off to a cliff and toss him into the sea after a man says, "take him to the ocean and throw him in," and a huge shark swims up behind him chomping (we see the shark's very large and sharp teeth). A cricket dodges being stepped on, being hit by a large hammer, being clapped between cymbals, being pierced by darts and he's finally thrown onto the ground and trapped under a cymbal. A shark sneezes and expectorates a man and a puppet out into the sea. A puppet's hands are chained to two horses, he breaks away and runs into woods where his foot is caught in a trap. Rabbits carry a coffin into a puppet's room where he has just refused to take medicine. A puppet makes up a story about his brother who died. A giant threatens puppets with a whip and then threatens to eat a puppet. A man talks about giving a boy a thrashing. A log falls off the back of a cart, rolls through narrow streets knocking people down and overturning food carts (two men are hit with vegetables in the face). A group of boys and a puppet turn into donkeys (we see them sprout ears and tails). A puppet is hoisted into the air a few times by a crowd, but is not caught the last time and lands hard on a stage. A puppet jumps around a workshop touching everything frantically and knocking things over, and runs out into the street where he knocks over barrels of wine, tears down laundry hanging on lines and causes a horse to rear. People talk about butterflies living for just one day. A puppet's nose grows when he lies in a few scenes.

LANGUAGE 1 - A couple of mild scatological terms, a few insults.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Being naughty, lying, peer pressure, second chances, stealing, greed, learning, love, happiness, father's pride.

MESSAGE - The world is what you make of it.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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