Charlotte's Web
By Lexi Schuh
Maybe it's wrong to badmouth a little girl, but I can't help it. Dakota Fanning is just so creepily precocious. And now, with all of the hubbub surrounding her rape scene in HoundDog, it is even more impossible to view her as the kind-hearted, pig-saving child in Charlotte's Web. Every time her character, Fern, provides a cutesy grin or a mere note of naiveté, it feels like dear Dakota is merely pretending to be a youngster. How strange since she really is one!
Moving past the incongruous innocence between the lead human character and the actor who plays her, the film, at least, remains true to the E. B. White story on which it is based. Sure, the movie feels like Babe 3: Pig and the Spider. Yet, the story itself came about in the fifties, long before Babe was even a twinkle in any sow's eye and, thus, wins rights as the original cutesy pig tale. Too bad the film feels pretty run-of-the-mill and renders its film version secondary to the Babe flicks.
Directed by Gary Winick (13 Going on 30), Charlotte's Web begins with Fern finding her father perched to behead runt piglet, Wilbur. Feeling his death would be unjust, Fern manifests her budding maternal instincts and adopts the un-portly piglet as her own. She secretly totes him to school, pushes him about town in a baby carriage and even spoons the porker in bed at night. Soon, though, Fern's parents must send the growing pig to Fern's uncle's neighboring barn. (Pretty unfair that Fern's dad okayed the pig as a pet, let her meat him up a bit and then passes the piglet on to a new owner. The unjustness of that, however, is never tackled.)
Fern continues to visit little Wilbur and, of course, he manages to win over the crowd of barnyard animals. After all, what would Babe 3 be without its cast of chit-chatty beasts? This crew includes the voice-acting of Oprah Winfrey, Cedric the Entertainer, Kathy Bates and Reba McEntire among others. Web-spinning spider Charlotte (Julia Roberts) leads the menagerie of do-gooders who wish to save the piglet from his destiny as a Christmas ham by crafting colorful Wilbur-focused phrases in her fibrous creations.
Filmed in Victoria, Australia, Charlotte's Web gets accolades for the occasional snippet of lush scenery. Overall, though, the film is mediocre with a healthy serving of sentimental slop.
Grades
Overall: C+
Story: B+
Acting: C+
Visuals: C+
Originality/Innovation: C
Enjoyability: C
DVD Extras: C
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