Synopsis
This little pig went to the city...
Babe, fresh from his victory in the sheepherding contest, returns to Farmer Hoggett's farm, but after Farmer Hoggett is injured and unable to work, Babe has to go to the big city to save the farm.
1998 Directed by George Miller
Babe, fresh from his victory in the sheepherding contest, returns to Farmer Hoggett's farm, but after Farmer Hoggett is injured and unable to work, Babe has to go to the big city to save the farm.
Magda Szubanski James Cromwell Mickey Rooney Mary Stein Julie Godfrey Janet Foye Pamela Hawkins Paul Livingston Kim Story John Upton Elizabeth Daily Danny Mann Glenne Headly Steven Wright James Cosmo Nathan Kress Myles Jeffrey Stanley Ralph Ross Russi Taylor Adam Goldberg Eddie Barth Bill Capizzi Miriam Margolyes Hugo Weaving Jim Cummings Katie Leigh Evelyn Krape Charles Bartlett Michael Edward-Stevens Show All…
Nash Edgerton Glenn Ruehland Rocky McDonald Linda Megier Brit Sooby Guy Norris Melody Sorensen Bernadette Winthers
Gethin Creagh Phil Heywood Wayne Pashley Pete Smith Roger Savage John Simpson Gerry Long Ian McLoughlin Michael Thompson Gareth Vanderhope Ben Osmo Julius Chan
Babe 2: Prasátko ve městě, Babe - El puerquito va a la ciudad, Babe 2 - Pig in the City, Babe 2, Babe in Metropolis, Babe, el cerdito va a la ciudad, Babe, o Porquinho Atrapalhado na Cidade, Babe, le cochon dans la ville, Babe - un cochon dans la ville, Schweinchen Babe in der großen Stadt, Babe 2: El cerdito en la ciudad, Babe va in città, Babe: Um Porquinho na Cidade, Бэйб: Поросенок в городе, Babe - en gris kommer till stan, Babe: prasátko ve městě, Babe 2 - Kismalac a nagyvárosban, Babe: Den kække gris kommer til byen, ベイブ/都会へ行く, בייב בעיר הגדולה, Babe suurkaupungissa, Бейб: Поросятко у місті, Бейб в града, 꼬마 돼지 베이브 2, Babe 2: El puerquito en la ciudad, Babe: Świnka w mieście, 小猪宝贝2:小猪进城, Prasiatko Babe v meste, Babe Şehirde, Babe, el porquet a la ciutat, Babe: Chú Heo Trong Thành Phố, เบ๊บ หมูน้อยหัวใจเทวดา ภาค 2, Μπέιμπ: Το μικρό γουρουνάκι στη μεγάλη πόλη, Babe, Txerritxo Ausarta Hirian, Mažylis mieste, Heldiggrisen Babe2: I storbyen
Good fucking lord.
This movie makes me feel fucking crazy. Every five minutes something happens that made me scream “what?!” A dark, nihilistic, Sonnenfeldian/Burton-esque fever dream fairytale in an extremely fascinating hodgepodge of a city, but one that also takes the stance of “people in the city fucking suck.” I can’t even pick out any one detail for fear of forgetting an even more crazy one, I’d have to give you a straight up synopsis. You can 100% see connections between this and Mad Max: Fury Road and anyone that says “what? George Miller is the Babe: Pig In The City guy??” should rewatch Babe: Pig In The City. I think this is a fascinating film. I think it might be a masterpiece.
"A murderer's shadow lies hard across my soul," is a thing a dog says to a pig in this movie. These kind of sincere, crazy ambitious follies are few and far between. They need to be treasured.
George Miller absolutely didn't have to create sets or chase setpieces as insane as the ones he did here. We need to go back to ostensible kids films that were as goofy and weird and traumatizing as this and then realized with impeccable craft. Give them back to the Verbinski's and Dante's, etc. (This and Small Soldiers in the same year definitely a huge influence on my taste in movies.)
An absolute feat of animal direction and puppetry and visual effects and production design and nightmares and creativity and big swings and studio "fuck you"s and ways to burn 90 million dollars. If George Miller emailed me to help fund Babe 3, I'd do some desperate and embarrassing shit to get him that money. You'd see a link to NFTs at the bottom of every one of these dumb little posts.
"A murderous shadow lies hard across my soul."
To commemorate the Babe 2 group watch, I attach my introduction:
Who here has seen the film Anti-Christ from, known Nazi, Lars Von Trier?
It is not a movie I particularly liked but, part way through, there is a moment where a fox looks into the camera and says: ‘Chaos Reigns’.
It rules.
At least I thought it ruled for, at the time, I had not seen Babe: Pig in the City. There is a point part way through the masterpiece that is Babe: Pig in the City where there is a brief shot of a choir of cats. They sing beautifully in harmony, but we hear them before we see them. And, interestingly, we hear them from the perspective…
O what a shame it is, that George Miller's Babe: Pig in the City is so vilified as being "jes' another sequel"! O Gods of cinema! why do you keep churning out sequel after sequel of the tired Die Hard movies, of the insanely stupid Transformers movies, of the melodramatically cliched Rocky movies, (hell, even of the "prequel" Star Wars movies), when you only gave poor Babe one lousy sequel that sold poorly on release?
Did that diatribe catch your attention? Well, see that it does, because I wouldn't want you to miss what I'm about to say about this sequel, which not only meets the expectations of the previous movie, it may even be (gasp!) BETTER than it! And…
This movie is out of its goddamn mind. There are scenes that are shot and edited like they are from Lorenzo's Oil where every actor in the scene is a monkey. They are insane shots with dozens of animals performing the same trick at the same time. A disabled dog gets thrown from a car and (yes I know it's a dummy but still) barrells through the streets like Mad Max's Inforcer.
This is trully the Fury Road of talking animal movies. It is complete lunacy how Miller pulled this off. It's not even a good sequel to Babe, it's more its own story that's closer to something like White God than Babe. But the sheer scale and inventiveness is…
THIS IS UNHINGED ABSURDIST PORCINE CINEMA.
BABE IS TAKEN TO 'THE CITY' WHERE DOGS ARE HUNG AND DROWNED, MONKEYS ARE EVICTED, AND THE FASHION IS REMINISCENT OF 2021 BUSHWICK. PROSTITUTE POODLES AND CAT CHOIRS REIGN SUPREME. FIRES BURN IN CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS AND DISABLED DOGS ARE SENT FLYING. NOTHING IS SACRED. NOTHING IS SANE. AND NOW, BABE IS FORCED TO CONFRONT HIS BIGGEST THREAT YET: EGO-DEATH.
EMBRACE CHAOS.
EMBRACE BABE: PIG IN THE CITY.