Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure
| Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 This isn't a great adventure at all.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure is a 2003 American animated musical adventure comedy-drama film, and the sequel to the 1973 film Charlotte's Web, which was based on the children's novel of the same name by E. B. White. It was produced by Paramount Pictures (as the logo is seen on worldwide releases), Universal Cartoon Studios (as the logo is seen on international releases), and Nickelodeon; and distributed by Paramount Pictures in North America and Universal Pictures overseas.
Plot
The film centers around Wilbur, who lives on Homer Zuckerman's farm and is taking care of Nellie, Aranea, and Joy, Charlotte's three daughters. He also must save his new friend, a friendly black lamb named Cardigan, from being eaten by an evil fox named Farley.
Why It's Not Great at All
- It is more juvenile than the 1973 film because of its more light-hearted tone, which some may find off-putting (granted, CW had its share of light-hearted moments, but still). It doesn't even appeal to adult viewers as much as it does to children, whom this sequel is better suited for.
- The main complaint with the film is that everything is drastically dumbed down here, from the characters to the writing to the story itself. Everything feels so much more immature here and the film feels that it constantly has to talk down to its child audience and treat them like idiots in order to communicate with them. This is inexcusable because the 1973 film managed to a convey serious concept that few childrens movies at the time would dare even touch upon, which was about Wilbur overcoming his fear of getting slaughtered. This movie clearly believes that its target audience's minds are that of a goldfish. As a result, most of the film is just mindless nonsense and brainless fluff desperately trying to entertain the audience with dull gags and just plain goofiness with no real purpose to the story.
- As is typical with sub-par sequels, the film's main plot feels like an enormous rehash of the 1973 film's plot, with some exceptions.
- The musical numbers are downright horrible. They are all unoriginal, poorly written, and seem to come out of nowhere.
- This movie came out 30 years after the first movie, which is considered too late to make a sequel.
- While movies like FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and a majority of the Studio Ghibli features had life lessons, they used the lessons as plot points in the already strong stories rather than being outright stated to the audience. Here, not only is the story itself terrible, but the message is so ridiculously hammered down that it not only does not give the audience a second to breathe, but it is also conveyed to the target audience in the most immature way.
- Since the original book by E. B. White was standalone, a continuation of the original story seems odd.
- Several of the characters have been flanderized here beyond belief.
- Wilbur suffered some major character derailment, as he is a big coward in this movie. In the original film from 1973, he overcame his fear of being slaughtered and had not worried about it anymore by the end of the movie. But here, it seems like the writers made this reversal of Wilbur's character just to make a plot out of it.
- Fern, the spirited young girl who fought to save Wilbur's life in the original film, is now a chipped-tooth hick who is only interested in winning a state fair prize for an enormous homegrown tomato. She even goes as far as to name the tomato and sing to it.
- The character designs in this movie, while well-crafted, are not consistent with those of the original. For example, Wilbur is depicted as having hair.
- All of the problems from the Disney and TLBT direct-to-video sequels (including their dullness, annoyance, general nonsense, and juvenile nature), are present throughout this movie.
- Misleading Title: Wilbur's "great" adventure isn't really that. Also, the title is quite generic and has Charlotte's name in it when she died at the end of the 1973 film.
- The sheep who taunt Cardigan never get their comeuppance.
- Nellie, Aranea, and Joy are a generic trio of spider girls who are really bland and not that interesting.
- In spite of being a pig, Wilbur's lack of cleanliness was never really emphasized in the original. In this, however, it's enforced to the point it's shockingly rather out of character.
Redeeming Qualities
- "Watch Out, Wilbur the Pig", which is heard in a nightmare sequence, is a decent song.
- Good voice acting.
- Nellie, Aranea, and Joy, who are Charlotte’s children, are considered to be the best characters in the movie.
- It has a good message of accepting people who are different.
- Decent animation and soundtrack.
- Both opening and ending scenes are decent.
Reception
Upon release, Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure received generally unfavorable reviews from critics. Robert Pardi of TV Guide reviewed the film saying that "This 20-years-later follow-up fails to capture the zest of the original cartoon, transforming E.B. White's beloved characters into cute sidekicks worthy of Barney. Brian Webster of Apollo Guide gave the film 59/100, stating "This is the sort of bland adventure that kids will have seen a hundred times before, with not-so-tense near-misses and not-so-exciting chases along the way." Mike Long of DVD Talk opined that "The lame story isn't helped by the mediocre at best animation. The art has no real style and could have come from any Saturday morning cartoon. The colors are good, but they only draw attention to the overall lack of detail here." Entertainment Weekly's Allyssa Lee gave the movie a C– grade, writing, "A sloppy second of a sequel, Web 2 unravels all the charm of E.B. White’s classic (not only has Wilbur become a swine who belches, but he sings about it, too)."
Richard Rowell of lifesuccessfully.com wrote a mixed review and concluded that "Overall, this film would have never done very well had it not be packaged with the DVD release of the original film. It was a direct-to-DVD film and it shows. While it makes for a cute spectacle for fans of the original story, it has all sorts of plot holes that kill it for me. It's clear that there was some effort put into character development, and I did enjoy seeing Aranea, Joy, and Nellie come to life. They were the best part of the film for me. But overall, the film was so corny and cliched that it just can't hold a candle to the original. For what it is, though, it's OK. But unless you're a huge fan of the original story, it's not really worth watching." Jules Faber of dvd.net similarly called it "A disappointing excursion that merges old school with a new school and succeeds in distancing itself from both. There are plenty of characters to amuse the children, but as far as grown-ups are concerned, this is less than plausible. Bunches of pretty colors and some beautiful backgrounds were the highlight here for me and are also sure to capture the kids’ eye for the entire 80 minutes. I’ve seen better animation in better packages, but I’ve also seen much, much worse for around the same money." Mirella Roche-Parker of michaeldvd.com rated it with 1.5/5 stars with the final comment "Who can know the minds of children when it comes to children's movies? If your particular batch of little's enjoyed the original, they may very well enjoy this. For my taste, it simply made me miss the original more."
The film was rated 4.5 out of 10 stars by users on IMDb. Despite this, most reviews have been positive on Amazon.com.
Trivia
- This movie was Paramount's attempt to follow in the footsteps of Disney's direct to video and The Land Before Time sequels, and there were originally going to be more Charlotte's Web movies, but they were scrapped due to the poor critical and financial performances of Charlotte's Web 2. The Charlotte's Web franchise was revived in 2006 with a live-action adaptation that was faithful to the original book.
- The "90th Anniversary" variant of the 2002 Paramount Pictures logo can be seen on DVD releases.