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DVD Brief: Babe: Pig in the City |
           
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Description: This sequel to the highly successful "Babe" (1995) got blind-sided by bad pre-release buzz and poor positioning by Universal: it's a brilliant film, almost surreal in its telling, that follows Babe and farmer Hogget's wife on a misguided journey into the "city" to make money to save the farm. Stranded in the city and on their own, the pair encounter evil humans and evil animals (including a cynical family of chimps) -- developing the "age-old" axiom that "bad things happen to good animals." Pig finds himself in an animal world very unlike his farm but very much like the human world around him: greed, anger and frustration seem to dominate. But the pig's compassion, courage and "humanness" rises to the occasion and goodness wins out. A tad dark for most kids -- and some adults, evidently -- but the cinematography and fable-like storytelling make a winning combination. Image: Visually stunning, particularly the scenes in the "city," which is actually a dream-visage combination of various city skylines and icons, including New York, Paris, Seattle and Los Angeles. The canal setting of the "pet hotel" drips with luscious color. Sound: Miller uses sound delicately to highlight his morality tale without detracting from visual image. A good sound mix. All DVDs are screened on a reference Onkyo DV- S717 third-generation DVD player.
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