Amazon.com
The award-winning HBO series
Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child provides updated cartoon versions of the classics that will hold your kids' attention without banging them on the head with themes. This very sweet version of
Pinocchio features a star-studded voice cast, including Will Smith, Chris Rock, Charles S. Dutton, and Della Reese. Although this may make the take sound strictly African American, the spin is decidedly multicultural. Gepetto becomes "George" and Pinocchio, being "chips of pine and oak off the old block" is called "Pinoak." The big spin is on Pinocchio's insect friend, who in this version is a termite named "Woody," played with a rascally style well suited to Chris Rock. If the kid wants you to watch with him or her, you will surely enjoy watching Reese "do her thing," as she says, which is a nifty Motown number called "What's Right What's Wrong." Rock gets his chance to get down with a rap called "No Strings Attached," even if the accompanying break dance is ill served by the rudimentary drawings and movement of the characters. Older viewers may cringe at the crude animation, but it is totally appropriate for its intended audience. The villainy is very low-key so as not to disturb. And the time-honored theme that you can only be a real boy when you learn to tell the truth makes for a story that can only end "happily ever after."
--Lloyd Chesley
Additional Information
This is
not the classic Disney animated movie.
