Pinocchio
Pinocchio. The story of an older, lonely man who wishes that his hand-carved puppet would come to life. It’s a magical story that I found to be the best movie that we have covered thus far in our quest to watch and review every Disney Animated theatrical release.
I chose to watch this movie with my wife and my kids since we have discovered that the animated movies bring a new light to their Disneyland ride counterparts. Well, I immediately was surprised to see how “risqué” the movie is in our modern times. Mind you, I had not seen Pinocchio since the early 80’s, and, now being an adult, I caught things that I had never seen before (namely the violence and alcohol consumption depicted by Geppetto’s cuckoo clocks.) Also, I had never realized that Jiminy Cricket was homeless at the beginning of the movie or that the classic song, “When You Wish Upon a Star” made its debut in the movie.
The movie was absolutely fabulous and was one of the few movies that kept my kids’ attention from opening to closing credits.
The key point in Pinocchio was this great conversation starter with my 4 year old: why did so many bad things happen to Pinocchio? I told him that Pinocchio choosing to continue to lie and be bad made life so much worse for him. I also reminded him that, even though our nose doesn’t grow when we lie, choosing to lie tends to make life more difficult for us in the long run. The clincher was telling him that being bad means that you may end up in jail. Life has been fantastic around the house since he grasped that idea. For the most part, the movie was great and would be acceptable for most ages. As stated earlier, there were some questionable portions (language, underage drinking and smoking, etc.) but I think that most kids will love this movie.
