Product: Pinocchio
Rating: 4.0
Brilliant animation, dark story
Pinocchio is a Disney classic in that is from the Golden Era of the studio and beautifully animated. The backgrounds are extraordinary, the detail astonishing. The clocks in Gepetto's workshop were drawn from models the studio actually made to aid the animators. The opening shot demonstrates the first use of the multi-plane camera; layering background and shooting from several different levels. The underwater scenes and especially Monstro the Whale are spectacular. Having said all that I do not like Pinocchio. The Collodi story, considerably domesticated here, is too dark. It is disturbing, unrelentingly so, and it is one of the few Disney animated features I do not own for that reason.