BABE: PIG IN THE CITY
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: The second BABE film is more creative
than the first, but it is also darker in tone. We
are back in the world where animals talk to each
other, but never to humans. Babe is taken to the
big city in an attempt to save Hoggett farm. But
Babe gets separated and has adventures with a whole
menagerie of animals. The art direction of this
film is almost as big a feature as the animal
animatronics, but it may be confusing for younger
children. Still, parents will find that they will
have to go a long way to find a film so enjoyable
both adults and for children. Rating: 6 (0 to 10),
high +1 (-4 to +4). A minor spoiler follows the
review.
The second Babe film, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY, had plenty of room to repeat what was good about the 1995 BABE. Co-writer and director George Miller really did not need to change the film's approach. But Miller was not content to rest on his laurels. The sequel is quite a different film and gives the audience much that is new and quite different to enjoy. Is it as good as the first film? To my mind it is not quite as good. The story is a little less a coherent story and the big climax of the film is more slapstick and less subtle excitement. Like BABE this is family entertainment, but I think it offers a little less for the children and perhaps a little less for the adults also. The tone is definitely darker and more disturbing. But like BABE, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY is probably the best family film of its year. And it is one of the rare family films that may well be better appreciated by adults than by children.
The Hoggett Farm is certainly having its ups and it downs. After a series of adventures related in the first film Babe has won international fame as the pig who is a sheep dog. Things are going well until Farmer Hoggett is disabled in a freak accident. (Note: the scenario of this accident was a joke told as early as the Fred Allen radio program in the 1940s and has appeared other places since. It may even be older than that. But to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time anybody filmed this strange sequence of events.) With Mr. Hoggett unable to care for his farm it falls on hard times and the bank is ready and anxious to make the times even harder. Mrs. Hoggett takes the famous pig to display him at a fair. But events conspire to maroon Mrs. Hoggett in the city with her pig and then to leave her pig all alone. Babe finds himself the new animal in a house full of animals with dubious human supervision. Among the animals Babe meets is a Damon-Runyan-esque pit bull, a family of chimpanzees, and a taciturn orangutan.
The film is told in the same style as the first Babe film but differently. Again the story is divided in chapters whose titles are read to us by the trio of singing mice. The Classical and popular music is back including the theme from Saint-Saens's Third Symphony. Miller has managed to get the same cast back, though James Cromwell has a much more limited role as Farmer Hoggett and Magda Szubanski has a much larger role this time continuing as Mrs. Hoggett. Again the comedy is genuinely funny and sometimes very funny. The acting and voicing seems to have all the same people in the same roles. The major characters are all present, even if their roles are much foreshortened. And as with the first film, the animals are frequently three- dimensional characters with interesting personalities. But the city Babe visits is not so much a city as a Disneyland-modified city- concentrate. It seems like a Frankensteinian grafting together of many of the great cities of the world. Looking out a window, Babe sees landmarks of cities all over the world. The interior of the city is an expressionist wonderworld looking like something out of Disneyland. While the first film had some physical comedy, this new film has a long slapstick sequence that seems out of character for the person involved.
This is more expensive and a cut below its predecessor, but it still is a good outing for the whole family. I give this film a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Spoiler... Spoiler... Spoiler... Spoiler... Spoiler... Spoiler...
Like ANIMAL FARM, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY may have many allegorical meanings and perhaps even religious overtones. Babe wins over his enemies with kindness and feeds his flock, but then allows an enforcer to stand over feeding and no animal is allowed to partake of the food without thanking Babe, under apparent threat of violence. What begins looking like an allegorical Christ turns into more a Huey Long allegory.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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