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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Charlotte's Web

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 30 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama | Family/Kids | Fantasy
Written by:
Susannah Grant
Karey Kirkpatrick
Earl Hamner Jr. (film story)
E.B. White (book)
Directed by: Gary Winick
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 15, 2006
DVD: April 3, 2007
Running Time: 96 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: G for General Audiences
Starring Julia Roberts, Dakota Fanning, Steve Buscemi, Dominic Scott Kay, John Cleese, Oprah Winfrey, Cedric the Entertainer, Kathy Bates, Reba McEntire, André Benjamin, Thomas Haden Church, and Robert Redford
This film brings the classic children's story about a frightened pig and his friend the spider to life.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: 13 Going On 30 Tadpole The Tic Code
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
The endearingly enduring 1952 E.B. White novel about friendship and salvation, has been turned into a beautifully rendered motion picture that's full of warmth, wit and wonder.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
There's an edge to this exemplary family movie, just as there is in the story.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
What hooks you from the start is Dakota Fanning's unfussy passion as Fern.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
It's the whole constellation of relationships that Winick and company create in and around the barn that brings the movie its kaleidoscopic charm.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Kids should enjoy the comic performances of the animals, and adults will appreciate the film's gentle poignancy, powerful enough to induce a lump in the throat.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Christy Lemire
Charlotte's Web is worth seeing (even if you don't have the excuse of a child to bring along with you) simply because it is so enduring after more than 50 years.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
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.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
May not be perfect, but it honors its source and captures the key elements -- the humor and good sense, as well as the sheer narrative exuberance -- that have made White’s book a classic.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
What results is, for a film purporting to reflect the nobility of a beloved book, the propensity to slip occasionally into the fart and belch slapstick that passes for humor in just about every present-day animated movie. It's a misstep that pulls us out of our awe for the carefully studied world the filmmakers have lovingly labored to create.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Now, about the spider. Julia Roberts voices Charlotte in a way that suggests ... not much, I'm afraid. She may be a genuine movie star and can be a good actress, but her voice -- and what she does with it -- never has been one of her strengths.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
No, it isn't as magically enchanting as the 1952 children's classic by E.B. White, any more than a museum-shop print of La Giaconda is as mysteriously beguiling as Leonardo's original. But this respectful, live-action adaptation of White's gentle tale about an undersized pig, a clever spider and the everyday marvels that too often pass unnoticed is a charmer nonetheless.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Everything from the book is inserted with wisdom and care, and everything added to pander to kids with short attention spans or adults who need an overtly religious message is unnecessary.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A perfectly lovely, if uninspired, movie that suffers from following on the trotters of "Babe," the one about the piglet advocate of barnyard brotherhood.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Charlotte's Web has all the requisite elements that a family film needs to succeed and endure: humor, drama, pathos, and an emotionally satisfying ending.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Remember the peaceful atmosphere of bedtime storytelling? The kind that allows parent and child to take satisfaction in the story, not the teller? That's how "Charlotte" draws you into its web.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Grose
Still, with such stellar source material, this Charlotte's Web won't disgrace your childhood memories -- or your child.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
This take on Charlotte's Web has its tacky side, but when dealing with a book this simply sweet and this revered--and given what was done with White's similarly gentle "Stuart Little" only a few years ago--"It could have been worse" practically counts as high praise.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
What it is, to borrow a word from the ever-eloquent spider Charlotte, is average. Don't misunderstand: While never quite enchanting, this "Web" is perfectly entertaining. But it could - and should -have been so much more.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
"Babe" was a classic because of its gentle simplicity. Charlotte's Web, with its insistently "magical" theme music, an overbearing climax and a trough full of bad jokes, is merely adequate.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Indeed, 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.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
It's not exactly radiant, but at least the movie's a little bit humble.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
To paraphrase the novel's famous last lines, it's not often a story comes along that can make for both a great book and a wonderful movie. Charlotte's Web isn't both.
Read Full Review >Empire Angie Errigo
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.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Peter Debruge
Whereas E.B. White's beloved novel introduced kids to the cycle of life, tenderly broaching the tricky subject of mortality, this latest movie version plays like just another piece of vegetarian agitprop.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
This passable live-action feature from Christian mogul Philip Anschutz (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) also relies heavily on the voices, though the actors are sometimes miscast (Julia Roberts as the spider) or chosen more for their on-screen personas than their pipes (Steve Buscemi as the rat).
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
The new live-action rendering of E.B. White's perennial children's favorite, Charlotte's Web, is so carefully spun that it's lifeless.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
What Charlotte's Web has always had going for it, and what I imagine kids will always cling to (regardless of technological advances), is a sweet, simple, and timeless story about the power of friendship and the acceptance of loss, a story that's told faithfully here. And that ending is still a doozy.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Nowhere to be found is any dramatic surprise, heightening of the pulse or genuine pulling of heartstrings. Gary Winick's direction consists of button pushing, and the mechanics are palpable at every step.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 30 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
casey chffg gave it a0:
This movie sucks. It gives e.b. white a horrlbile look.
juice lim gave it an8:
The movie is nice but both the movie and storybook is differ in their plot. so i was not sure which is the real one but i still prefer the movie.
Christa G. gave it a10:
OMG (Oh my Gosh!) This movie was great! Wilbur has a great sense of humor and so does Charlotte! She is so caring and loveable for Wilbur! My mom loved it and so did my grandma! Hope you liked it too.
Avner N. gave it a10:
Beautiful. I love the animated film, but this was special, magic, kind, and lovable. One of the most touching films I´ve ever seen.
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Nothing spectecular about this films, but it gracefully and faithfully conveys E. B. White's charming story which is just what one can reasonably expect from it.
Adam L. gave it a0:
This movie is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. I wasted 5 bucks on this movie. the acting was terrible. This is a disgrace to E.B. White!
Mark B. gave it a7:
One of 2006's more noteworthy cinematic quirks was Michael Winterbottom's amusing stab at filming Laurence Sterne's (The Life and Opinions of) Tristram Shandy, a work that has been catalogued as completely unfilmable even by those who DID get through reading it. (Winterbottom's approach was to make it a spoof halfway between the styles of Christopher Guest and the Zucker brothers; this was probably as valid as any other and certainly more watchable.) E. B. White's masterpiece Charlotte's Web--a bonafide classic that doesn't need the slightly condescending designation 'children's' since it's a great book no matter what the reader's age--is the opposite of Sterne; it's seemingly impossible NOT for anyone to be able to make a decent movie out of it. This was proven in 1973 when Hanna-Barbera Studios, whose Saturday morning cartoon product had by this time plumbed new depths in cheesy animation, sloppy scriptwriting and derivative plot and character work, STILL managed to make a rousing, good-looking and utterly charming film version. (But a lot of H-B's stuff from the previous decade: Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Jonny Quest and more, still ranks in the 'very-good-to-near-great' category. Rest in peace, Joe, Ed and Iwao.) The eventually inevitable live-action do-over equals or tops the cartoon in most areas because White's themes are so universal and his foundation so solid, and the vocal performances are so much on the mark. Julia Roberts is wonderfully warm, beguiling and nonsaccharine as the compassionate, wise title character, a spider who "spins" a publicity campaign to save her friend Wilbur the pig from the smokehouse--between this and The Ant Bully she's emerging as the cinema's prime interpreter of creatures with more than four legs! (Her vocals also help remedy the necessary hurdle of Charlotte's visual depiction; while all the farm animals are played by a seamless blend of real critters and realistic CGI, she's a very obvious visual effect: obviously cuter than any real arachnid gets to be, but out of sync with the rest of the creatures.) Steve Buscemi as the gleefully self-centered Templeton the rat manages the near-impossible: he matches Paul Lynde's peerless 1973 work, while Robert Redford's offbeat casting as a slightly cowardly horse is a more subdued delight. The director is equally well-cast; Gary Winick's two biggest previous ventures Tadpole and 13 Going on 30 dealt with the differences between adults and adolescents, and a major theme of White's book is growing up--whether by Wilbur reaching emotional maturity and independence or by his young master Fern growing less attentive to pigs and more so to boys. A few tonal changes don't hurt the original story but are worth mentioning: although the death of a very sympathetic character was treated by White not as a calamity or a disaster but as a very natural part of life (and may have been for some children who haven't lost loved ones or friends their first introduction to this concept), it's somewhat downplayed here perhaps to guarantee a G rating. In introducing two hungry crows (voiced by Andre Benjamin and Thomas Haden Church) who weren't in the book, the moviemakers have actually made Templeton's reluctance to search the junkyard for items that could save Wilbur's life somewhat more justifiable than sheer laziness and selfishness were in the original, since he definitely qualifies as a blue-plate special for the predatory birds! It's also an indication of how much times have changed that in the late 1970s/ early 1980s network showings of Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles had slashed the legendary "bean scene" (so what was the point of showing it on TV in the first place?) but in this age of Captain Underpants, fart jokes in kids' movies are seemingly as essential as climactic boxing matches are in Rocky films. No exception is made here, but at least the obligatory passing of gas doesn't seem as contrived or out of place. After all, if your movie is going to feature barnyard humor, might as well set half of it in a barn!
