Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure (G)
IMDb; Paramount; Wikipedia
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Caution: spoilers.

This is a direct-to-video sequel to Charlotte's Web, which came in 2003, thirty years after the original. To be honest, the only reason I got the DVD is because it was bundled with the original and a live-action version that came out in 2006. I expected it to be lame, and it did kind of start out that way. Eventually it grew on me, but it was never anywhere near as good as the original. The animation, writing, and songs are all inferior, though the acting's okay, and the story does have some good points. And even some of the movie's more ridiculous points are amusing.

Anyway, it's set the year after the original movie. As you'll recall (because you must have already seen that movie, before watching this one), at the end of the first movie, Charlotte the spider dies. But not before laying a ton of eggs, which hatch after she dies. Then most of the baby spiders fly away, except for three: Nellie, Joy, and Aranea. In the sequel, they're all friends of Wilbur's. Nellie is adventurous, Joy is snarky and cynical, and Aranea is somewhat nervous, and always frustrated that she can't make webs good enough to catch flies. But the plot really gets started when Wilbur befriends a newborn lamb named Cardigan. None of the other lambs want to play with Cardigan, because... well, I'm not sure. Maybe because he's clumsy, though I had the uncomfortable feeling that it might be because he's a black sheep... which really shouldn't have any human connotations of racism, but still, I felt it was somewhat pointed that none of the barnyard animals ever specifically mentioned his color... as if the writers were afraid it would have unfortunate implications if they did. Meanwhile, the humans actually liked that he was a black sheep, because this uncommon quality made him more valuable.

This became a problem when Zuckerman sold Cardigan at this year's county fair, to a farmer named Hirsch. Of course Cardigan and Wilbur were unhappy about being split up (though the only human who understood that was Fern). Later, Wilbur decides to go to the Hirsch farm to see if Cardigan is okay. His three young spider friends go with him, and they get Templeton the rat to guide them there (after Wilbur promises to babysit Templeton's bratty kids). On the way there, Wilbur gets a bunch of leaves and sticks and such all stuck to him in such a way that he looks like a wild boar. (I immediately knew this would cause trouble later on.) I should also mention that the Zuckerman farm had earlier been troubled by a fox named Farley, who will of course make trouble later at the Hirsch farm... for which Wilbur ends up being blamed. So, the spiders have to try to help Wilbur prove his innocence, though they fail at that. Later, Wilbur, Templeton, and the spiders all have to try to rescue Cardigan, after he's abducted by Farley. They're aided by one of Hirsch's cows, Bessie. Meanwhile, Fern is concerned when she discovers Wilbur has gone missing from her uncle's farm, so she goes looking for him. And Hirsch gets a bunch of local farmers together, and they and their dogs begin hunting the "wild pig."

That's all I should say about the plot, though naturally it has a happy ending. Um... I didn't really care for the movie's first song, a duet between Wilbur and Cardigan. But the three spiders had a song that I liked better, basically because it made me nostalgic for the original movie, in a way. And Farley had a song of his own that was kind of neat... he really was a decent villain, sort of. But I think the spiders were the funnest part of the movie, because they had the most entertaining personalities, and some of the best lines. (Also, they each had a unique- and humanish- hairstyle, which is how you can tell them apart. It was absurd that they had hair like that, but also kind of cute.) And that's all I can think to say. Not really a good movie, but it didn't suck.