Pinocchio cast and reviews as live-action remake arrives on Disney+

The live-action remake of family favourite Pinocchio has arrived on Disney+ . The story of the puppet who dreams of being a real boy has been rebooted for the 21st century - with an impressive cast and a seasoned director.

The new version is based on the 1940 Walt Disney animation classic of the same name, which itself took inspiration from an earlier story - the 1883 Italian children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi. The 1940 version was the first animated feature film to win an Oscar and is still regarded as one of the best of all time.

The new Disney+ movie is more or less a direct remake – with the script following an almost identical narrative as the 1940 film. Once again, Jiminy Cricket is the way into the story, which sees an Italian woodcarver named Geppetto make a wooden puppet named Pinocchio. Many of the key moments remain the same too – such as the emergence of the Blue Fairy who brings the puppet to life, the appearance of Honest John to tempt Pinocchio, and the trip to Pleasure Island, complete with nightmarish donkey transformation.

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Director Robert Zemeckis, whose previous work includes Back to the Future and Forrest Gump, said in the film's press notes: “We use the 1940 Disney version as a template and an outline for our story. So it follows pretty much the same adventure that Pinocchio follows in the animated version.

“We modernise the storytelling because there was a different sort of pacing in movies then than there is now, but we basically kept the spirit and the tone and the theme of the first movie."

Actor and filmmaking legend Tom Hanks stars as