Babe, le cochon dans la ville

I would just like to thank Gene Siskel for all the tribute he gave to this movie. He ranked it as the best movie of 1998!! I would have to agree with him! This has got to be one of the funniest, wildest, best films of all time!!! The first "Babe" is pale in comparison to this movie! Anyway, it's about how Mrs. Hoggat is in debt, so she takes Babe to live in the big city with her. When Babe gets there, he meets tons of new animal friends, cats, dogs, monkeys, you name it! I also remember how the one monkey lady would always call him "the pig whitey thing". There were so many animal characters, but yet it worked because they were all each in some way important to the story. The duck was funny, too! Give us more of the duck! It was also cool how the bulldog wanted everyone to obey Babe, and it was like he was Babe's protector. What was also satisfying was how at the end, they told about what happened to all of the animal characters. It makes you realize how these animals all have their own communities and such. That's why I adore movies like this and "Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey".

I'll never forget my favorite part, the scene at the end where Mrs. Hoggat was flying in those big trousers and everyone was in a frenzy to get Babe. And they made cute references, like the part where Babe was giving the jellybeans ("Thank the pig") was probably a reference to the pope, I believe. I can't believe this movie has no quotes! Please don't listen to the Leonard Maltin review. I personally think the first "Babe" was darker than BPITC. Anyway, this is truly a wonderful film. I've only seen it once (I think) so rent it today! A perfect 10/10.

Fresh from sheep dog trials success, Babe and Farmer Hogget are the toast of the land. However an accident puts Hogget in traction and leaves the farm dangerously close to being repossessed. Mrs Hogget sets out to America with Babe to attend a major Fare with a large appearance fee, however a misunderstanding at customs results in them missing the fare and being stranded in the city. The pair go to a hotel that illegally takes animals of all sorts but Mrs Hogget's arrest and the capture of the animals leads Babe to once again show determination against the odds.

At the end of the film Babe, Farmer Hogget says `that'll do pig, that'll do'. It is a wonderfully touching moment that is fitting for such a charming story that was told without malice or clumsy humour – just one warm moment after another. However the studio didn't hear Hogget's words and pumped out a sequel that will have all but the least demanding child clambering to watch the original to wash away the bad taste in their mouths from this. The plot is nothing like the original in theme – it tries to set out it's stall (sorry) as being a tale of how the brave heart overcomes etc but it is nonsense, instead it is more like Home Alone with monkeys than Babe.

The humour comes with things falling etc and the plot is far too dark and cruel to have anything like the original's charm. It is just plain dull to be honest and I never found myself involved in the hectic going-ons that were occurring before me. Worse still are the characters. On one hand we have a few famous (read American) voices added to the cast (Wright, Rooney and a few I couldn't place) but they don't ever get close to being as good CHARACTERS as the original had. Where the original had animals that we knew or grew to care for as Babe did, here we have comedy monkeys (one alarmingly dressed as an `Nu Yark' hussy!) and dogs that barely get a line. These are animals played for laughs (oh, look at the monkey getting dressed!) and not played as characters as in the first film.

Overall this is not awful it is just very poor and difficult to enjoy. Kids will laugh at the animals chasing humans etc but adults will be unmoved and uninvolved. For me this film was worse than it actually was as it traded on the name of that charming film Babe. It slightly ruined the memory of the original for me with a sour taste and I shall never wish to see this thing again. If you loved the original and were interested in seeing this – don't. Just don't.

I remember watching this movie when I was very very young and I kinda remembered parts of but I kept procrastinating watching it again now because I remembered I loved it when I was young. So finally came the day I saw it and I must say even after all these years it's quite enjoyable.

I want to talk about a few aspects of the movie very briefly

The story. ( Easy to watch, engaging, made up of multiple small chapters which lead to the final conclusion. It's a Cartoonish fairyland mixed with some dark real-life messages which I overlooked when I was younger. It's very interesting how realistic they made this movie and personally, I couldn't believe it was shot in 1998. We are once again reunited with the little innocent pig called Babe and his adventures which helps him slowly grow up and teaches him good values. But compared to the first movie this has more darker twists and turns which eventually lead to something good.

Sound design. (Excellent. When I watched the movie everything with music felt just right like you would expect.)

Stunts. ( I wasn't expecting much stunts at all from this franchise but it surprised me with the second movie which is filled with quite a lot of amazing quality stuntwork. From dog chases which feel like car chases but with animals to all the other acrobatic things that happened. I'm still amazed.)

Overall I think quite a lot of people will enjoy it and very few won't. Personally, after watching it this feels like not the greatest movie and not the worst one so it's somewhere in the middle around 7 out of 10. Would recommend to anyone but it wouldn't be my first choice as a family movie.

Many people just don't get it. They may tell you this movie is too dark for children. Don't believe them. This is a great movie for children. Didn't "Snow White" have an old hag try to kill her with a poison apple. Death is darker than any "dark tone" laid out in this gorgeous piece of cinema, but "Snow White" didn't get as many negative comments as this movie. The kids that watched the original "Babe" have grown up, and so did the franchise. Sure the movie may have a few adult moments than the original; for instance, most kids won't understand the whole Mrs. Hoggett cavity search incident. But overall this movie presents the great moral that everyone should be good to each other over everything else, even to someone who might have done something wrong to you. That is a message that everyone, adults and children, should hear and consider. In the end, "Babe" achieves respect and gains a whole new group of friends from his good deeds, and everyone is happy including the audience. I think this movie will be considered a classic sometime in the future, as it should be.

It's so technically well executed and gorgeous to look at (obviously George Miller asked for and got a huge budget this time around) but almost every thing that happens to these cutest-of-cute animals is *mean-spirited*. The sweetness of the last film is gone, as is that movie's easy-going but tightly-woven plot. Instead we have Hollywood histrionics and chase scenes and randomness that just seems like delay tactics for the first 3/4 of the film. For example, we follow that duck every now and then as he chases after but never finds Babe. The duck arrives in the city and is immediately shot at by twenty members of a rifle range. Funny? No. It's done in an ultra-realistic way, it looks like he's actually injured, there's no Roadrunner & Wile E. Coyote cartoonness to this violence.

Finally after much depressing animal cruelty the surviving heroes get together and head off towards a final rescue act, but by that point I'd turned off. It involved the farmers wife in a clown suit bungee jumping around a restaurant and a bunch of balloons and other silly fighting. Not a very fun movie, and it could have been!

worst moments:

* Andy Rooney, made up as a clown, led off to die in a stretcher.

* Cute puppy says, "my human put me in a sack and threw me in the water"