...far more in the Looney Tunes vein of live-action comedy than Babe ever was.
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"Babe: Pig in the City," the follow-up to the enormously successful "Babe," is in many ways superior to its predecessor. Indeed, it is a very different film. Where "Babe" was warm, gentle, and cuddly, "Pig in the City" is fast paced and antic. It is far more in the Looney Tunes vein of live-action comedy than "Babe" ever was. Of course, it's not all live-action, either, with a good deal of computer animation and animatronics bringing its animals to life. However, you'd never tell these characters were anything but real, live critters; the filmmaking craft is that good. "Pig in the City" is a delightful, high-octane romp through a surrealistic world of make-believe that is probably more fun for adults than children. I recommend it heartily.
The story takes up where the first film left off, with Babe returning home triumphantly from a sheep herding competition. All is not to stay happy for long. In his well-meaning way, Babe accidentally causes Farmer Hoggett a knock on the noggin, laying him up and endangering the farm. The bank threatens to foreclose, and the Hoggetts' only recourse is for Mrs. Hoggett to exhibit Babe at a fair to earn some money. When this necessitates a long trip and a stopover in the big city, disaster ensues. In the course of several foul-ups, Mrs. Hoggett is jailed for assaulting a policeman, and Babe is kidnapped to perform with a group of trained apes. Before long, Babe is involved in comic adventures with a whole menagerie of urban animals.
The film's assets are almost too numerous to list. Let's start with the amazingly lifelike personifications of the animals themselves. By using real animals plus computer graphics and artificial creations, the filmmakers have created a cast of non-human characters that looks more realistic and more believable than the humans around them. Indeed, part of the fun of the movie is that the animals are made to seem overly human and the humans to seem overly cartoonish. Thus, the line between reality and illusion is ever blurred.
Babe, of course, is the star of the show, voiced wonderfully by E.G. Daily. Babe is a character so innocent, so sweet, so naive, so forthright, and so brave, we can't fail to fall in love with him. Magda Szubanski and James Cromwell return as the Hoggetts, this time with Ms. Szubanski taking the lead. She is an enormously talented comedian who takes pride in her rotund figure and uses it to fine humorous advantage. Mickey Rooney has the most bizarre part of all, playing a grotesque old man, Fugly Floom, a performing clown who lives with a family of chimpanzees, one monkey, and an orangutan. The apes are more appealing than Uncle Fugly. Roscoe Lee Browne narrates the events in patient, kind, and fatherly fashion.
The set design is yet another highlight to enjoy. As the movie says, the action takes place just a little left of the twentieth century. The big city of the film is an amalgam of cities everywhere. The landscape includes the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, the Empire State Building, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Inside the city, the streets are lined with all manner of architectural styles, with automobiles of all vintages, and with Venetian canals meandering throughout. The setting is reminiscent of a dreamscape, or at least the world of an old-time animated cartoon. These sets are fascinating to view and are themselves as much a part of the movie's personality as its characters.
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