Le petit monde de Charlotte

I attended an advanced screening recently in Nashville, TN. I loved John Cleese as the sheep. Steve Buscemi was perfect as Templeton. Thomas Haden Church is so funny. He played his crow like Lowell Mather from "Wings". This guy can play the perfect moron. Dakota Fanning just gets better with each role. She will be a hot property for some time to come. She may not ever achieve "Tom Cruise level" stardom, but she is extremely talented.

I could not believe how many people cried. The cast really did a great job of making the audience CARE about the characters.

Children and adults will enjoy this film. There is plenty of humor to offset the tragic elements of the story.

It's a beautiful movie and wonderfully true to the book. A fan of EB White's brilliant work, I could recite the last lines alongside the movie. The friend I went with is a die-hard fan of the older, animated Charlotte's Web; his only complaint was that this one had fewer musical numbers (read: none). Also, I felt the beginning and end credits act as somewhat of a homage to the animated version.

The voices are very well cast; Julia Roberts is a comforting and delightful Charlotte, and while the opening shots of the spider made some in the audience go "Ew," we grow, like the barn animals, to embrace her warm nature. I found her quite beautiful in the end.

Steve Buscemi is perfect as Templeton. Knowing John Cleese is behind the head sheep makes it even funnier. And Dakota Fanning finally gets to play a little girl being a little girl.

It only made me tear up twice, but I'm a big softy. Take the family, the kids, and anyone who's ever enjoyed EB White's classic story.

With this movie made in part in my hometown (Williamstown) I dragged the kids along to check it out.

Being well familiar with the story, I expected this to be pretty light hearted fair, but the wife still managed to turn into a blubbing mess at the end.

The movie had an uneasy feel about the setting; didn't feel current or old for that matter, so perhaps will age OK.

The CGI was pretty amazing. I'd hate to imagine what someone from a time capsule or straight out of jail would imagine has happened in our world since they left. Talking animals and spiders, so realistic the kids don't even blink twice.

Good for young kids (mine are 4 and 2), and not monotonously boring like many of the other CGI laden kids movies out there.

I'm not sure where all of the criticism of this movie is coming from! My wife and I watched and enjoyed every moment of this children's classic and didn't feel cheated in any way by the telling!

The story is close to the children's book but a couple of goofy crows are added with the voices of Thomas Haden Church and Andre Benjamin. They only added a mild comic subplot but didn't affect the telling in any way. Every time I hear THC's voice, I always see his character from Wings blabbering on about something mundane! He's quite silly as a starving crow!

If you want high drama this year, go see Apocalypto, or Blood Diamond... for good family entertainment, Charlotte's Web is the perfect counter to any heavy story lines from those other movies!

Bring your Kleenex. Maybe it's just coz I'm female, or maybe it's coz my mother read this book to me when I was little -- but every time a new word appeared in that web -- tears rolled down my cheeks!

It's very charming. They have kept to the time frame of the book -- it looks like the 1930s-1950s. They haven't tried to "modernize" it with pop culture references and silly jokes like so many kids' movies nowadays do.

Fern isn't break dancing with the pig. (No, there are no musical numbers.)

Fart jokes were kept to a minimum. (I think they are required by law nowadays to put fart jokes in all children's entertainment.)

They didn't dumb down the lovely words E.B. White used -- Charlotte uses her grand language as she speaks to Wilbur and spins her webs.

I kept thinking of "Babe" at the start of the movie. A white runt pig saved. Similar barnyard companions. Even the voice of Wilbur sounds like the voice of Babe. (Even tho Babe was voiced by a 32 y.o. woman and Wilbur by a 9 y.o. boy!) But I think the writers of Babe must have been fans of the classic "Charlotte's Web".

Steve Buscemi as the voice of Templeton the Rat is just perfect. (Poor guy even has a rat-like face -- is that why they cast him?) And the CGI animation is flawless. You can't tell the animated animals from the real ones. Flawlessly blended.

That little pig is SO cute at the beginning -- I just wanted to watch him play in the mud for 10 minutes. (But no, they kept the story moving along.) They even tried to make the spider cute, but that's quite a challenge. Still Julia Roberts' soothing motherly voice helps. (Nevertheless, the little girl next to me climbed into her grandma's lap when the spider appeared.)

And Dakota Fanning, as always, is a darling.

So go -- and if you loved the book as a child, bring plenty of Kleenex!