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PINOCCHIO
"Roberto Benigni's 'Pinocchio' is such a ghastly
misfire, such a charmless and witless waste of film, you can easily
understand why Miramax refused to advance-screen it for critics...the
movie is an egregious fiasco, appearing at once laughably tatty
and ludicrously overproduced as it desperately encompasses a cluttered
jumble of visual and narrative influences...The glaringly maladroit
English dubbing, which makes the unfortunate cast of this Italian-produced
film appear even sillier, is the final nail in the coffin. Chalk
it up as the worst kind of hubristic folly...Whenever Benigni's
Pinocchio expresses his longing to be 'a real little boy,' he comes
off as delusional, if not totally deranged." --Joe
Leydon, San Francisco Examiner
"... a noisy, exasperating take on the children's classic starring
Roberto Benigni, a hyperkinetic writer-director-player of unparalleled
mannered hysterics who is as irritating as a human deer tick...Lethal
for kids and an unspeakable insult to adults, this unreleasable
fiasco is a torture for all." -- Rex
Reed, The New York Observer
"...a movie so bad that it quickly enters the pantheon of wreckage
that includes 'Battlefield Earth' and 'Showgirls.' The heavy sighs
of the few other people in the theater, who apparently had been
paroled into the custody of the multiplex, were easily heard over
the long, dead silences between Pinocchio-Benigni's chattering...It's
hard to tell what's sadder, Geppetto's belief that Pinocchio is
a child puppet or Mr. Benigni's need to play one...It's an oddity
that will be avoided by millions of people, this new 'Pinocchio.'
Osama bin Laden could attend a showing in Times Square and be confident
of remaining hidden." --Elvis Mitchell,
The New York Times
"So misguided as to be utterly mystifying, this shameless vanity
project is almost surreal enough to be entertaining. Almost...Benigni,
who never met a camera he didn't sloppily embrace, cast himself
in the lead...What's worse, the American edition is dubbed, rather
than subtitled. So we're left with a 52-year-old man with the voice
of 28-year-old Breckin Meyer playing a 10-year-old boy made of wood...Though
'Pinocchio' is said to be the most expensive Italian movie ever
made, it looks like the cheapest, thanks to the washed-out settings,
lazy script and haphazard direction." --Elizabeth
Weitzman, The New York Daily News
"Benigni only superficially comprehends Pinocchio's heartbreaking
desire for flesh-and-bone, and as such there's very little difference
between the Pinocchio that chases after wild geese and smashes into
garbage cans and the more mannered Pinocchio that gets to go to
school by film's end. It's like watching an ass put on a blue suit--there's
still an ass underneath." --Ed
Gonzalez, Slant
"The puppet may finally come to life, but the movie never does...we
did expect director/co-writer/star Benigni (Life Is Beautiful) to
deliver a film that's much livelier and more amusing than this listless,
ill-conceived fiasco...It is very hard to accept as a child a man
of 50 who does nothing to hide his receding hairline or his height...The
willing suspension of disbelief is a wonderful thing. And yet you
can not simply declare that you are a puppet child and expect the
world to go along with you...Instead of hiding 'Pinocchio' from
critics, Miramax should have hidden it from everyone." --Jay
Boyar, Orlando Sentinel
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