11/28/98
It doesn't have the richness of the original, or it's rather solemn tone. It's really a very different kind of picture, much more of a screwball, laugh-out-loud movie. I suppose you could call this a sequel, as there are several returning characters other than Babe, but to do so would really be a slight to Babe II. George Miller and company create a totally new, and completely goofy, world in this one. The homey realism, so to speak, of Hoggett Farm is replaced by Metropolis, a city that visually resembles certain Terry Gilliam creations, without the menacing undertones. Most of the screen time goes to Babe and the "folks" he meets in this new world. Sadly, Christine Cavanaugh is gone as the voice of Babe, but Magda Szubanski, as Mrs. Hoggett, is given a much, ahem, meatier role (and a pronounced Scots accent?) this time, and is a lot of fun to watch.
What Miller carries forward from the first picture so very well is the work he does with his animal actors and the special effects crew to create believeable characters who behave consistently and within the storyline. You won't see any out-of-character mugging by the chimps, for instance. The cats act like cats and the dogs act like dogs. It's nothing short of brilliant what they manage to get up there on the screen. You can easily forget that these are animals playing these characters.