Pinocchio

Though it was wildly successful in its native Italy, Roberto Benigni's live-action retelling of Carlo Collodi's classic tale about the puppet who wants to be a real boy bombed in the U.S., and understandably so. With innumerable scenes of its bug-eyed, frenzied 50-year-old star prancing about in clown costume, arms flailing, pretending to be a rambunctious child, this gaudy, chaotic film proves far more creepy than enchanting. Benigni offers little beyond relentless Jerry Lewis-style high jinks as Pinocchio scrambles through his series of adventures on the way toward learning responsibility, and although the picture is colorful and occasionally elegant, with some bewitching fairytale backgrounds and amusingly tacky effects, the visual virtues can't compensate for its singular lack of charm. The dubbed version only makes matters worse (with voice talent including Glenn Close, James Belushi, and Regis Philbin), as the hollow sonic ambiance and mismatched lip movements only add to the surrealistic awfulness of it all. This Pinocchio will either terrify children or bore them to tears, while adults will simply be appalled. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras on this double-disc set include both the original Italian-language version and the “Hollywood dubbed in English” version of the film, the featurettes “The Windows of Pinocchio: FAO Schwarz Holiday Windows in New York” and “The Voices of Pinocchio: Creating the English Dubbed Version,” and trailers. Bottom line: original or dubbed, this wooden adaptation of Collodi's classic tale stinks either way.] (F. Swietek)