When the pig Babe accidentally steps into the bucket and falls and injures farmer Arthur on the bottom of the well, Arthur's wife Esme, plagued by the financial burden of the farm, accepts a proposal to fly to the Metropolis and be paid to feature Babe participating in a fair. At the airport, they miss their connecting flight and now have to stay in a hotel for a while. Babe is kidnapped by a circus performer, Fugly, but he becomes sick and lands in a hospital. Babe, together with other abandoned animals in the hotel—three chimpanzees, an orangutan, dogs—stay alone, since Esme has been arrested. Animal control officers take all the animals away in a shelter, but Babe is able to free them and reunite with Esme. The hotel owner rents the hotel to a dance club, gives the money to Esme, who returns with Babe to the farm and helps a recovered Arthur to service the new well and pay the bills.
"Babe: Pig in the City" is plot-wise a very questionable sequel—the first 20 minutes feel like a natural continuation of the Babe story, but the remaining 70 minutes seem like an "intruder", as if Babe got lost in a different movie. The opening act that shows the aftermath of "Babe" is set in the farm, and thus works the best, especially in the brilliantly comical sequence where Babe accidentally enters a descending bucket and injures farmer Arthur on the bottom of the well, in a triple injury, but once the pig and the farmer's wife Esme travel to the big city, one is not so sure what this movie is about anymore—it actually feels as if the director George Miller had a different story in plan, about the urban-rural dissonance, but then just slapped Babe and Esme in it to fake a sequel. The work of coordinating all these animals and aligning them into a narrative is impressive, and there are detailed set-designs and elaborate comical set pieces (especially in the finale, where Esme, her suspenders tied up to a rope hanging from a chandelier, swings left and right across a charity hall, trying to pick up Babe on the ground, while three other people are swinging at the same time, trying to grab Babe first).
However, several problems burden the film, and clash badly with film critic Gene Siskel's decision to pick it as the number 1 film of 1998. For instance, it is a pity that almost all the characters from the previous film are largely absent in this sequel, since farmer Arthur (an underused James Cromwell) and other farm animals are left behind on the farm, leaving only Esme and Babe as the "core crew". The new animal characters aren't that impressive either, since they mostly lack a personality—we don't find out much about the chimpanzee Zootie, expect that she is pregnant, nor about orangutan Thelonius, except that he has a sad look. Then an angry Bull Terrier dog is added to be Babe's friend, but the movie could have worked fine without him, anyway. Another peculiar anomaly is the circus owner played by Mickey Rooney, who is brought up, and then suddenly disappears from the film after just 5 minutes, ostensibly due to health issues. The movie could have worked fine without him, for instance that the animals were already alone in the hotel. Neither is there a reason to use elaborate visual effects to conjure up various city landmarks (Chrysler Building, Willis Tower, Empire State Building...) in this city, when they are not relevant or necessary for the story. The final third feels kind of lacking, since not enough is at stakes (Babe wants to save the animals from the animal shelter, but wouldn't they have been also fine there? How is this connected to Esme's quest to find money to pay the bills for her farm?). Miller opted for less comedy and more stylization this time around, creating a peculiarity, but Babe is still an endearing and sweet character, even in this abridged edition.
Grade:++
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