Plot
Wilbur the pig is scared of the end of the season, because he knows that come that time, he will end up on the dinner table. He hatches a plan with Charlotte, a spider that lives in his pen, to ensure that this will never happen.
Release Year: 2006
Rating: 6.5/10 (11,601 voted)
Critic's Score: 68/100
Director:
Gary Winick
Stars: Dakota Fanning, Julia Roberts, Oprah Winfrey
Storyline Wilbur the pig is scared of the end of the season, because he knows that come that time, he will end up on the dinner table. He hatches a plan with Charlotte, a spider that lives in his pen, to ensure that this will never happen.
Writers: Susannah Grant, Karey Kirkpatrick
Cast: Julia Roberts
-
Charlotte the Spider
(voice)
Steve Buscemi
-
Templeton the Rat
(voice)
John Cleese
-
Samuel the Sheep
(voice)
Oprah Winfrey
-
Gussy the Goose
(voice)
Cedric the Entertainer
-
Golly the Goose
(voice)
Kathy Bates
-
Bitsy the Cow
(voice)
Reba McEntire
-
Betsy the Cow
(voice)
Robert Redford
-
Ike the Horse
(voice)
Thomas Haden Church
-
Brooks the Crow
(voice)
André Benjamin
-
Elwyn the Crow
(voice)
Dominic Scott Kay
-
Wilbur
(voice)
Sam Shepard
-
Narrator
(voice)
Abraham Benrubi
-
Uncle the Pig
(voice)
Dakota Fanning
-
Fern
Kevin Anderson
-
Mr. Arable
Filming Locations: Attwood, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Opening Weekend: $11,457,353
(USA)
(17 December 2006)
(3566 Screens)
Gross: $82,506,325
(USA)
(18 March 2007)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
The animals don't speak until ten minutes into the film.
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes:
Wilbur, a boar (male pig) is played by sows (female pigs). This is blatantly obvious in some scenes.
Quotes: Homer Zuckerman:
How could this have happened? A miracle, in a time when we don't see many miraculious things!
User Review
Radiant!
Rating: 9/10
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!
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