DVD Review: Babe - Pig in the City (pig, dogs)

DVD Review:  Babe, Pig in the City with James Cromwell (Universal Pictures, 1998, G, 96 minutes)

This Little Pig Went to the City

Our lovable pig is back, this time in the city having one calamitous adventure after another and this time with (and without) the farmer’s wife

(Farmer Hoggett was laid up after a pig-caused accident).

And, again, dogs abound.

This time, Babe the Pig is out to save the farm, Hoggett Hollow, a place a little left of the twentieth century, from being taken over by the big bad bank.

Dogs Abound in this Little Piggy-Adventure

What do you get when you cross a pink poodle with a bull terrier? Slapstick that is wonderfully, entertainingly different.

Ferdinand the duck, witness to insanity, and, oh dear, another antagonist bull terrier.

A JRT with wheels, Nigel the bulldog, Allen the Mastiff and more – too many to count and also a family of monkeys (including Uncle Thelonius Monk[ey]) with prehensile tails living in a hotel that ends up being a new ‘hotel for dogs’! (plus two sweet new baby monkeys) If that taxes your brain, ask your child to explain the plot for you.

A Little Pig in a Big City

It’s tough when you’re a pig alone in the city: It can leave you lonely, looking for sheep to herd in a city that’s part Hollywood, part Sydney, part Victorian London, part Venice, part Paris, part New York, part fairy tale - lonely and you can’t always put things back together as they were.

Pig Power

Our sweet little hero finally wins in the end and makes everyone a friend but you’ll have to see it to believe how!

Make New Friends but Keep the Old

However, like many movies that are so very very successful that they generate a sequel or two, this pig story is better told in the first movie, Babe, than in Babe: Pig in the City. So, if you have time for only one, Babe is our pick of the litter.