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Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is a dark and gloomy adaptation of the children's novel set in Mussolini-era Italy. In this remarkable stop-motion musical version, set sometime between the first and second world wars, Gepetto — a toymaker deeply grieving the loss of his son who died in a church bombing — carves a puppet that eerily resembles him. When the wooden puppet comes to life, he is oblivious to just how peculiar his ability to walk and talk is and how strange it is that Pinocchio and Sebastian, the talking cricket (played by Ewan McGregor), start going out into the world and exploring. The story takes a turn when Pinocchio is kidnapped from school and convinced to join a traveling circus and then taken to a fascist training camp. While not exactly for kids, this fantasy-horror version is definitely the only one of the three Pinochio versions released in 2022 worth watching. If you’re taken by the stop motion, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio: Handcarved Cinema takes you behind the scenes, diving into animation techniques and the making of the movie.