Charlotte's Web

I would see the film again as it was a nice relaxing enjoyable film. Ideal for a young family to see.

A lovely film for children, but it has all been done before. (Well - very similar! Babe the talking pig?) I remember watching the original version of this film back in the eighties on Video and expected more than what I saw in this new version. (Having said that - this film is for kids!)

A sow gives birth to some piglets in the barn. The Farmer picks out the runty piglet and is about to take him off and kill him when his little girl, Fern, enters the Barn and stops him.

She makes a promise to the little piglet that she will always look after him. She bottle-fed him and looked after him until there was a problem when the School Teacher discovered the piglet in her desk.

After this the little piglet had to live in the big barn with all the other animals. The Horse, the five sheep, two cows, a goose and gander...... and Templeton THE RAT!

One night Wilbur was feeling lonely as Fern had not made her usual trip down to the big barn to read his bed-time story. He was crying out when someone replied. He could not see who it was but the voice settled him down for the night and promise she would show herself in the morning.

YES! you have got it! It was Charlotte the Spider. The two became friends and when one day Fern's brother almost caught Charlotte in a jar, Wilbur saved her life.

Templeton the Rat scared little Wilbur when he told him that as he was a Spring pig, he wouldn't live to see the winter snow. Charlotte promised Wilbur she would not let anything happen to him. And she kept her promise. She spun a web on which were the words SOME PIG. People from everywhere arrived to see this miracle!

This happened a couple more times, the third being at a show Wilbur had been entered into at the Fair.

By this time Charlotte had almost come to the end of her life and lays hundreds of eggs in a little spiderweb sac. All through the Winter Wilbur guarded and protected Charlotte's babies. He saw the Winter Snow as Charlotte had promised he would. Then in the spring an amazing thing happened! Charlottes babies started to emerge from the sac.

The film has a very happy ending. I took my eight year old and he was loving it but it may be a little too babyish for children very much older. My son Ricky says "I enjoyed Charlotte's Web very much but I have seen better films."

I loved the character of Templeton the Rat. He was great! Highly amusing in places!

It is a lovely film to watch if you want something to do with the kids, it's a rainy day and there's nothing else on. It will have them laughing!

Otherwise, you may prefer to wait until it comes out on DVD instead!