Why couldn't this film maintain the quality of the first 15 minutes?

The first half of Act 1 was hyping up a way better movie than we got. The atmosphere of it was perfect and I feel that it could have stood as its own mini movie. But once Pinocchio was born it all spiralled into a mess. The kid was so irredeemably awful that I couldn't buy for a minute Geppetto could stomach his presence for more than five seconds. Their whole heartfelt relationship fell flat because I wanted to see him set the kid on fire.

The voice acting is charmless. Christoph Waltz is a force in Tarantino films but as a voice actor he has no charisma.

The whole thing was a mess tonally. Seriously, they tried to do a whimsical coming of age story in a FASCIST MILITARY CAMP? Somebody tell Del Toro that fascism isn't fun and games. Nothing was consistent or held dramatic weight. Characters would teleport across the map randomly, and characters only got hurt when the plot wanted it.

Such a disappointment. And I was really looking forward to this too. I have to conclude after watching so many of his films that Del Toro just isn't a good story-teller. He's got a tremendous visual eye and that's it. But everything about the pacing, the internal logic, the characters and the plot fell flat.