| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

If you can identify all the voices before the credits roll up, you are a better man than I.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 9, 2007

This film does what all children's films should do: not just offer lots of entertaining things to look at, but teach children how to look at the world with curiosity, attentiveness and joy.

| Feb 9, 2007

It's hard to go wrong with a cute liddle piggy.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 9, 2007

Adult audiences tend to find [Dakota Fanning] rather shrill - witnessing [her] at full shriek is like being attacked by a colony of bats. For this reason, Charlotte's Web is probably one for youngsters only.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 9, 2007

If they'd stopped yammering for just a few minutes, White's heartbreaking ending might have retained its poignancy. As it is, it's little more than a blessed relief.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 9, 2007

Youngsters will warm to the barn's talking animals and perhaps even shed a tear at the sight of a spider shuffling off the mortal coil. Arachnaphobes, though, are advised to approach with caution.

| Feb 8, 2007

Cute and sweet, and if it lacks great wit or magic, at least it has the courage to remain faithful to the gentle sadness and 'realism' of the original material.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 7, 2007

Manages to snuff the spark that has made Charlotte's Web so beloved over the years.

| Feb 6, 2007

Any tears you may shed will be wholly earned.

| Original Score: 5/6 | Feb 3, 2007

I think what's most valuable here is the gentle reminder that lives are short, friendship is priceless and words can make a difference. The movie Charlotte's Web isn't a classic, but the message is.

| Dec 30, 2006

There's too much talent and too strong a story to mess it up. There was potential for more here, but this incarnation is nothing to be ashamed of, and some of the actors answer the bell.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 30, 2006

What Charlotte's Web has always had going for it, and what I imagine kids will always cling to, is a sweet, simple, and timeless story about the power of friendship and the acceptance of loss, a story that's told faithfully here.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 30, 2006

Woe be to the child who doesn't mist up at this movie, since it's been made if not with zip, wit, or imagination, then at least with sweetness. But I hope no one will think the film is an adequate replacement for White's book. That would be a crime.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 30, 2006

The voice talent seems selected for marquee value rather than the ability to create a character. But the power of the story retains its genuine magic and, like Fern, audiences will find this barnyard a place they want to stay.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Dec 15, 2006

Best of all may be the narration, by Sam Shepard: His voice, the kind of voice God might have if he'd ever smoked Camels, frames this gentle but potent little story with good-natured authority, making it feel modern and ageless at once.

Full Review | Dec 15, 2006

In the end, the pros and cons all just add up to that same bit of modern-day kid-movie praise: It could have been so much worse.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Dec 15, 2006

Charlotte's Web, with its insistently 'magical' theme music, an overbearing climax and a trough full of bad jokes, is merely adequate.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 15, 2006

It's a movie so modest and gentle, you'll hear your neighbour's popcorn crunch. But you may also hear your heart beating. And there's nothing wrong with that.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 15, 2006

The film, directed by Gary Winick (13 Going on 30) has a sweetness of its own.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 15, 2006