| 100 |
The Hollywood Reporter
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.
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| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
There's an edge to this exemplary family movie, just as there is in the story.
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| 91 |
Entertainment Weekly
What hooks you from the start is Dakota Fanning's unfussy passion as Fern.
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| 91 |
Baltimore Sun
It's the whole constellation of relationships that Winick and company create in and around the barn that brings the movie its kaleidoscopic charm.
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| 88 |
USA Today
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.
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| 83 |
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.
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| 80 |
Salon.com
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.
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| 80 |
The New York Times
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.
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| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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.
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| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
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.
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| 75 |
TV Guide
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.
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| 75 |
Charlotte Observer
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.
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| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
A perfectly lovely, if uninspired, movie that suffers from following on the trotters of "Babe," the one about the piglet advocate of barnyard brotherhood.
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| 75 |
ReelViews
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.
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| 70 |
Washington Post
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.
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| 70 |
Village Voice
Jessica Grose
Still, with such stellar source material, this Charlotte's Web won't disgrace your childhood memories -- or your child.
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| 67 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
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.
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| 63 |
New York Daily News
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.
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| 63 |
New York Post
"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.
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| 63 |
Boston Globe
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.
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| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
It's not exactly radiant, but at least the movie's a little bit humble.
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| 60 |
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.
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| 60 |
Empire
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.
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| 50 |
Miami Herald
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.
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| 50 |
Chicago Reader
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).
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| 50 |
Los Angeles Times
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.
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| 50 |
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.
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| 50 |
Variety
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.
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