Critics Praise Guillermo del Toro's Fascist & Religious-Based Story in New 'Pinocchio' Film

As the year nears a conclusion, the final two weeks of December seem like an appropriate time to declare Netflix the streaming service champion of 2022. During the Summer, Stranger Things 4 yielded monstrous viewership numbers for the company, as expected. But the Fall and Winter belongs to a pair of shows that no one could have predicted would reach the same trajectory in terms of critically acclaimed original television and film productions on a streaming service. On September 14th, Netflix published DAHMER, a hit series starring Evan Peters that would go on to shatter viewership records and stir up a bevy of controversy en route to owning social media in the six weeks that followed. Eventually, the hype surrounding the show died down after a climactic Halloween night, opening the door for yet another record-breaking run for a Netflix original, Wednesday. The Addams Family spin-off starring Jenna Ortega broke DAHMER's record for streams, reaching 1 billion hours watched within less than a month. The storylines behind DAHMER and Wednesday each have a built-in audience steeped in American history. Hence, these productions brought forth societal issues that the mainstream had to address, both positive and negative. Now that consumers have binged and digested these original shows, another familiar story has captivated the minds of film critics and fans worldwide. 

Ten days ago, Netflix released the latest adaptation of Pinocchio, a stop-animation fantasy film by Academy award-winning director Guillermo del Toro. Unlike the previous fairytale-esque depictions of this iconic bedtime story originally written by Carlo Collodi (in 1983), Guillermo Del Toro took the happy-go-lucky ambiance of the traditional plot and ventured into the depths of his dark imagination. Guillermo Del Toro beautifully crafted this movie by incorporating murder, grief psychology, war, dark magic, poverty, Catholicism, and anti-fascism with the joys of fatherhood, unlikely friendships, good music, and love. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is comparable to some of the legendary work by filmmaker Tim Burton.