Amy Adams in HBO Max EB White Adaptation

As the classics of children’s literature Charlotte Web is near the top of the pantheon. Since its publication, millions of young people have fallen for its lively animal characters, its gentle but not too sentimental representation of rural life, its sweet but honest lessons on friendship, change and death. I counted myself among his fans as a child, and I count myself again among them now as an adult: rereading the book for this same criticism, I discovered that his pleasures were as durable as I hoped.

While the adaptations of the classics of children’s literature will, on the other hand, the new HBO Max Charlotte Web It seems unlikely to leave anything near such a lasting impression. The three -part special produced by the sesame workshop is simply correct, bogged down by a dull CG animation, a distribution of starred but unequal voice and an unnecessary intrigue padding. However, that it finds its way to a real peak at the end testifies the timeless power of White’s tale, more than a credit to one of the choices made here.

In the cartoon led by Yurie Rocha, as in White’s original, the story revolves around the efforts to save Wilbur the Porcelet (expressed by Griffin Robert Faulkner from the start, then Elijah Wood as they age) of the typical bloody fate of breeding. (Here is a clue: in a first scene, a plate of Greeting Bacon is on a three -feet table of Wilbur unconscious.) The first rescue comes a few hours after birth, when a little girl of justice named Fern Arable (Natalie Chan) intervenes not to raise anything.

The second rescue and more fanciful occurs a few months later, after Wilbur exceeded the Arable farm and settled in a larger on the road. By learning that Wilbur is almost certainly intended for the Christmas dinner table, his new best friend, a Grange spider named Charlotte (Amy Adams), strives to “deceive” humans to change their mind. She weave websites decorated with compliments for Wilbur – “a pig”, “radiant”, etc. – Hoping that if they believe it is a miracle, they will be less likely to eat it.

Although Fern is Wilbur’s first love, it is really her friendship with Charlotte and the rest of his community of farmyard which serve as the emotional nucleus of Charlotte Web. Adams is a solid choice for arachnid, the wise and warm counterpoint with Wilbur with a wide and impressionable eye of Faulkner. But Charlotte is not exactly her most inspired work; This is the rare role of Adams where it is just as easy to imagine a number of other actors filling the slit.

At least, Adams has more depth to work than Keith David, Cynthia Erivo and Danny Trejo as some of the other assorted creatures, or Jean Smart as a narrator possibly wrong. (I say “maybe” because I can’t help but hear Deborah Vance, although I allow it to be less a problem for the target audience of children too small to have seen Hacks.) The only member of the distribution which seems that he really savor his role is Randall Park, offering occasional comic relief as a selfish ostentatious rat named Templeton.

The unequal quality of vocal work corresponds to the inequality of the animation of the Guru studios in Toronto. The animals are rendered with service, with generic cute faces and sometimes detailed textures if not sometimes improbable. (Wilbur has a nice shine of fishing fuzz, but Charlotte looks inexplicably made of wood and templet as he was soaked in glue.) It is humans who seem to be stowed, in weightlessness and strangely waxy, as if they are made with the most pointed animation images of 2007. Combined with the wicks of the farm so that they can so well be stock images, peak purse, Charlotte Web It looks inexpensive and not creatively. Rather, it seems to target the brilliant on a big budget, on the big screen and with a large Disney studio or lighting, and simply short.

Its extensions to history feel just as shy. The animal side of Charlotte Web is crowded with a few slightly fun detours, including a prosecution through a dumping ground and a trip to a mirror room; Although they were clearly narrative, they are quite well as a way to entertain irresseat children or give animators a break to create another scene from a pig to watch a spider.

Addes to the human side are more substantial but less successful. Among them are a subplot about the Sisterly Bickering Between Fern’s Artsy Eunt Edith (Rosario Dawson) and Fern’s Mother Dolores (Ana Ortiz), A Woman so Gimly Practical that when confrontated with the Sight of an Unusually Beautifully Beautiful Quilt, SHE SNIFFS Prefers Simpler Pleasures Like “Getting Your Chores Done, Paying Your Bills on Time [and] Get food on the table. But the sweetness of this plot is first undervalued by the fact that Dolores is, clearly, a total trail, then by a resolution which introduces the concept of racism at the end of the third act so that it can immediately close it without further exploration.

However, when the story of history at the forefront of its sweetness-bit end, it is difficult not to feel for the pig who never wanted to live and love. Fern and Charlotte could save Wilbur from his own death, at least for a while. But nobody can protect anyone from reality that change is simply part of life – that even our fiercest friendships can end, that we are ourselves forever in the process of transformation, that death touches us all, but that if we are lucky, the same goes for new lives and new loves. Whites Charlotte Web Lost because all these facts are as true and as difficult as ever, and HBO Max works since it is for the same reason. If this new version cannot hold a candle to the original, it does nothing to reduce its light.