Pinocchio: A True Story, a Russian animated adaptation of the well-known fairy tale with Pauly Shore providing the voice of the titular puppet kid, will be featured this week on WTF Theater. Think about that, buddy. The 2019 magical-realist live-action adaptation of the story, which starred Roberto Benigni as Geppetto and CGI’ed Pinocchio into a nightmare-inducing abomination, is the worst thing ever, though Guillermo del Toro’s impending stop-motion adaptation might be even more bizarre. However, the instantly recognised dudespeak of the Artist Formerly Known as The Weasel is already coming out of Pinocchio’s mouth. We must deal with it because it exists.
PINOCCHIO: A TRUE STORY: Is It Worth Watching?
The Point: A talking horse with Napoleon Dynamite’s voice takes a little break from sucking water to address us, the viewers. You recall those tales like Pinocchio where he lies and his nose grows and such? He calls it hogwash. You’re about to witness the truth. That’s me, the film critic, who endures this garbage so you don’t have to: it’ll be far more dull than getting ingested by a whale.
That horse is Tibalt (Jon Heder), who after being fathered from a log by Geppetto (Tom Kenny, a.k.a. SpongeBob SquarePants), will become Pinocchio’s (Pauly Shore) steed. In a joke, Geppetto is trying to name his new puppet. He says Leonardo, but he shouldn’t since he might end up being a self-centered actor when he grows up, and we all groan bitterly. Will this movie fall into that category? The self-aware, pop-culture-referencing post-Shrek twaddle? Please put my head in the horse trough and keep me from coming out. But it quickly becomes old since a movie doesn’t have to be obnoxious; it may just be slow and boring.
Anyway, Lyusilda (Kate Lann), a wizardess friend of Geppetto’s, uses her magic device to make Pinocchio conscious. Pauly Shore then impersonates Dr. Frankenstein (you know, “It’s aliiiive!”), which makes one realise, oh, right, this is one of those movies where you’re supposed to take the edibles about 15 minutes before watching. The evil ringmaster Mangiafuoco (Bernard Jacobsen) needs a new act to draw people to the show so his scumbag friends Cat (Andrei Kurganov) and Fox (Stephen Ochsner) can rob everyone’s houses while they’re not at home, so Pinocchio, who is Geppetto’s secret quasi-son, R-U-N-N-O-F-Ts to join the circus with It’s a big scam, comparable to persuading people to pay $5.99 to see terrible Russian cartoons on Amazon.
The equestrian portion of Pinocchio’s performance pairs well with Bella, his blue-haired co-song-and-trapeze star’s performance (Liza Klimova). Pinocchio falls in love with her so sweetly that one wonders how that could ever happen. She rejects him, either because she doesn’t want to have sex with plywood or maybe because she wants to keep him out of Mangiafuoco’s evil plans. Pinocchio then rides Tibalt off to locate a fairy in the woods who will transform him into a real boy, hopefully one with the right anatomies for Bella’s sake.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of: Whatever will be playing in my head tonight just before I spring up in a cold sweat at 3:14 a.m., including Shrek, Hoodwinked!, Gnomeo and Juliet, the immortal Encino Man, and whatever.
Watchable Performance: Someone requested insane line readings from Pauly Shore playing Pinocchio, and they got what they wanted.
So, one clown said something, and then another clown said something. However, Pinocchio, you are the true clown in this situation. – Tibalt confronts his best friend with the brutal, pipe-cracking reality.
If only: Sex and skin.
Our Opinion: This is how Pinocchio is produced in the SOVIET UNION: With a grating, obtrusive, persistent soundtrack; obscene character designs; the greatest animation Windows XP is capable of producing; without a talking whale, donkey, or cricket; and Pauly Shore as Pinocchio. It will elicit an unpleasant mixture of hysterical laughter and disgust. And yet, it’s utterly monotonous. That makes it a really impressive feat.
I will admit that while Heder was repeating the one clown/another clown monologue, I laughed so hard that I almost threw up while completely sober. You might want to restrain your morbid curiosity until this thing streams for free on some third-rate channel in a few weeks. You will find laughs here—possibly unintentionally, but who can tell—but not as many as you’d hope for a movie that was obviously a sh*t salary for these voice performers. One warning: You won’t be able to pay your six dollars fast enough if you’ve always wanted to hear Pauly Shore tunelessly sing a song that doesn’t rhyme since it was translated from Russian in a Pinocchio movie in which he portrays Pinocchio.
Pinocchio-oh-no is our call. AVOID IT.
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