Charlotte's Web

What hooks you from the start is Dakota Fanning's unfussy passion as Fern.Read Full Review »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Still, with such stellar source material, this Charlotte's Web won't disgrace your childhood memories -- or your child.Read Full Review »

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 »

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 »

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 »