"Babe" told the tall tale of a humble pig who escaped the axe by becoming a sheep herder. It was the charming, feel-good sleeper hit of 1995. A sequel was inevitable, but 1998's "Babe: Pig in the City" was a box office bomb, capping a disastrous year for Universal Studios. It was a film without an audience. Adults considered it to be a children's movie. But despite its 'G' rating, it was too scary for kids (some cried during the previews).
Once the film's run had ended, revisionist thinking set in. Maybe it was a great film after all, what with its dark sets, and theme of cruel civilization subjugating the helpless. It made both Siskel and Ebert's annual top ten lists, with the late Gene Siskel pegging the film at number one.
What were they thinking? While "Pig in the City" is watchable, it is a mess. The film offers an ensemble cast of animal personalities, with few of them making any sense. While Babe is as sweet-natured and helpful as before, the limitations of his nice-guy persona are obvious without a good story to support him.
The film begins where "Babe" left off. The pig returns to the farm as a hero, a champion sheep herder. But it's all downhill from there, as Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell, who has only a few scenes) becomes incapacitated. Soulless bankers threaten to take over the farm. In desperation, Mrs. Hoggett (Magda Szubanski) takes Babe on a plane flight to foreign lands, to claim appearance fees. However, a series of unlikely and unfunny plot contrivances puts the naive wife in jail, and poor Babe is left alone in a hotel teeming with hungry, orphaned, unfriendly animals.
Several of these animals are well dressed monkeys of various sizes. One chimpanzee has a sarcastic personality, another is somewhat motherly, and there's a big orangutan who looks so cute dressed up. There's a feisty dog in a wheelchair, another dog who resembles Spuds McKenzie of decade-past beer commercials, a bunch of cats who sing in a choir, three mice minstrels from the first film, and a duck who for some reason considers Babe to be his good luck charm. All these animals run wild in the hotel, in the streets, and in a fancy restaurant. There's no shortage of action, but the same can't be said for the story. The animals are looking for food, and seeking to escape obsessive dogcatchers armed with nets and cages. That's about it for plot, and it might suffice if the animal characters held some interest, and if the attempts at humor didn't misfire. There's mild suspense involving the rescue of a luckless goldfish. However, a scene where the lady chimpanzee gives birth doesn't work, failing to evoke sympathy.
One of the reasons why the original "Babe" was successful was that the animals were on a farm. This is where they belonged, where they made sense, and where they could do things that farm animals do. Taking away their characters and their environment reduces them to cute sight gags. The interplay between the Farmer and his animals helped gave the first film its charm. Here, there's little interaction at all, with the human characters played by Szubanski, Mickey Rooney and Mary Stein not fleshed out beyond supporting comic caricatures. "Babe: Pig in the City" just doesn't work, and its failure in the theaters was not the result of poor marketing, but inferior writing and direction. (39/100).
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