Babe: Pig in the City

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert have gone on an anti-box office tirade recently, after seeing some movies that they liked get ignored by the masses due to the conception that they weren't any good because their opening takes were less than stellar. I commend both critics for standing against the current practice of judging a movie based on its opening box office. I've watched box office numbers for about four years now, and the game has changed considerbly in that time. These days, if you're not in the top five or grossing $15 million plus on your opening weekend, the general public assumes the movie's a dud. Sadly, it ain't always the case.

That said, Siskel and Ebert have made it their personal missions to tell the world about the Little Pig Sequel That Could. Siskel went so far as to make it his #1 movie of the year. Ebert put it somewhere in his top ten. Now that I've seen the movie, I'll cast my vote somewhere between their reaction and the public's: It deserved better, but it's not the masterpiece they say it is. In fact, it's downright weird.

Following up Babe was really a thankless chore. They accomplished something so rare and so special with Babe that the very idea of a sequel cheapened the sentiment of the original. Babe was smart, cute, heartwrenching (I must confess, when James Cromwell sings that song and does the jig for an ailing Babe, I well up every time) and not the least bit condescending, which is something you can't say for most kid's movies. And so, for the mega-budget sequel ($90 million and counting), they put it in the hands of... George Miller.

Who's George Miller, you ask? Only the man responsible for the Mad Max trilogy and The Witches of Eastwick, among others. In other words, he's an odd choice for the director's chair. But he executive produced the original, and was really the best man for the job. Babe: Pig in the City has Miller's rather warped sense of humor all over it, which is great, but it's also the movie's biggest problem. It's hard to relate to in the same way as the original.

Plot summary: The Hoggetts fall on hard times when Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell, who has maybe ten lines and four minutes of screen time in the movie) has an accident (caused by Babe, of course) and is laid up for a while.

With the creditors on the horizon threatening to take the farm away, Mrs. Hoggett decides to cash in on Babe's popularity after the sheep dog trials by accepting some appearance money for a show in The City. Which city? All of them. The shot of The City is pretty impressive, with landmarks from every major city in the world. Once in the City, Mrs. Hoggett (who very quickly adopted an Irish accent in this one) and Babe get separated and, well, chaos ensues. The cast of talking animals is massive, at least twice the size of the first movie. But bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. James Cromwell was one of the great things about Babe, and his lack of screen time in the sequel is a liability. Also, the focus was lost on the movie's namesake: Babe. Sure, he does a few kind hearted things, like save a vicious pitt bull from drowning. But the main point of the first movie for me was Let your kids be whatever they want to be, and that message is completely lost here. What also hurt my viewing experience was the print of the movie. It sounded unfinished. Missing sound effects, a terrible mixing job, and a discount theater sound system (read: quiet) make this that much less enjoyable.

The man at Universal who green lighted this movie and stood idly by when Miller went way over budget was fired a week after Babe's release. I have a conspiracy theory that they deliberately mismarketed this movie (remember the TV ads with the Barry White soundalike and the mice sounding like backup singers for Will Smith?) just to help get him out the door. Then again, if they had really tried to push this movie, it probably wouldn't have done much better. Their best bet, I think, would have been to market it as the midnight movie it's bound to be, because you're going to need some serious drugs to fully appreciate it.