Babe: Pig in the City

***Babe: Pig in the City*** is a 1998 Australian-American comedy-drama adventure film and the sequel to the 1995 film *Babe*. It is co-written, produced and directed by George Miller, who co-wrote and produced the original film. Most of the actors from the first film reappeared as their respective roles, including James Cromwell, Miriam Margolyes, Hugo Weaving, Danny Mann, Roscoe Lee Browne and Magda Szubanski with newcomers featuring Glenne Headly, Steven Wright, James Cosmo, Myles Jeffrey, and Mickey Rooney. However, most of them have only brief appearances, as the story focuses on the journey of Babe and Arthur Hoggett's wife Esme in the fictional city of Metropolis and Elizabeth Daily replaces Christine Cavanaugh as the voice of Babe.

The film was nominated for Best Original Song at the 1998 Academy Awards. The movie was neither critically nor commercially as successful as its predecessor, grossing only $69.5 million on a $90 million budget and receiving mixed reviews.

## Plot

A few weeks after the events of the first film, Arthur Hoggett is injured in an accident while he and Babe attempt to fix the farm's well, leaving his wife Esme to tend the farm alone. Then threatened with eviction at the end of the month unless the mortgage is paid, Esme takes Babe to a sheepdog herding contest in hope of using the prize money to save the farm. At the city of Metropolis' airport, an overzealous sniffer dog falsely signals that Babe and Esme are carrying drugs, causing them to miss their flight and forcing a few days wait for the next flight home.

At first unable to find a hotel that allows animals, Esme and Babe find accommodation at a hotel run by Miss Floom, who provides animals with a refuge much to the chagrin of her neighbours. There Babe is separated from Esme and meets a trio of chimpanzees—Bob, his wife Zootie and his little brother Easy—and Thelonius, a civilized Bornean orangutan who is a butler for the landlady's elderly uncle, Fugly. Babe is made part of their clown act, which he is reluctant to appear in until the apes insinuate that he will be paid. Meanwhile, Esme, believing Babe has escaped, goes looking for him but is arrested after an incident involving police officers and other bystanders while a gang of motorcycles attempted to mug her.

The next morning, Fugly is taken to the hospital in a food coma, accompanied by his niece. Left to fend for themselves, the hotel's animal occupants soon become hungry and the chimps decide to steal food from a store, using Babe to distract a pair of guard dogs. Babe rescues one of the dogs when he falls into a canal, who pledges to act as bodyguard to Babe. Having flown all the way to Metropolis, Ferdinand the Duck finds Babe at the hotel, where Zootie gives birth to twins. The celebration is interrupted when several unfriendly animal control officers summoned there by the Flooms' neighbour, Hortense, who dislikes animals.

Most of the animals are removed except for Babe, Ferdinand, a capuchin monkey called Tug and a disabled Jack Russell terrier named Flealick. They infiltrate the animal control facility and rescue their wrongfully imprisoned friends. Released from custody, Esme returns to the hotel to find it in disarray and Miss Floom mourning her uncle. After confronting Hortense, they track down the animals to a charity dinner and retrieve them all. Floom sells the hotel and gives the proceeds to Esme to save the farm, where she and all the animals go to stay. Esme resumes her duties and Arthur recovers, and after finally fixing the farm's water pump, proudly smiles at Babe and says, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do."

## Cast

* E.G. Daily as Babe, a pig.
* Magda Szubanski as Esme Cordelia Hoggett, Arthur's wife.
* Steven Wright as Bob, one of the Flooms' chimpanzees who is Zootie's husband and Easy's older brother.
* Mickey Rooney as Fugly Floom, Miss Floom's late uncle.
* Glenne Headly as Zootie, one of the Flooms' chimpanzees who is Bob's wife and Easy's sister-in-law.
* Nathan Kress and Myles Jeffrey as Easy, one of the Flooms' chimpanzees who is Bob's younger brother and Zootie's brother-in-law.
* James Cosmo as Thelonius, a civilized Bornean orangutan who is a servant to Fugly, and later to Arthur and Esme at the end of the film.
* Eddie Barth as Nigel, a Bulldog residing in the hotel.
	+ Eddie Barth also voices Alan, a Neapolitan Mastiff residing in the hotel.
* Adam Goldberg as Flealick, a disabled and talkative Jack Russell terrier.
* Danny Mann as Ferdinand, an Indian Runner duck.
	+ Mann also voices Tug, the Flooms' Panamanian white-faced capuchin
* Mary Stein as Miss Floom, the hotel's landlady and Fugly's niece.
* Roscoe Lee Browne as the narrator
* James Cromwell as Arthur Hoggett, Esme's husband.
* Stanley Ralph Ross as a Bull Terrier and Doberman Pinscher guard dog duo.
* Julie Godfrey as Hortense, the Flooms' neighbor.
* Janet Foye and Pamela Hawkins as Mrs. Hoggett's friends
* Russi Taylor as a poodle that lives on the streets.
	+ Russi Taylor also voices a choir cat
* Bill Capizzi as Snoop, an overzealous beagle who works at the airport as a security sniffer.
* Miriam Margolyes as Fly, a Border Collie who is Rex's wife and Babe's adoptive mother.
* Hugo Weaving as Rex, a Border Collie who is the farm's lead sheepdog, Babe's adoptive father, and Fly's husband.
* Jim Cummings as a pelican
* Katie Leigh as a kitten
* Evelyn Krape as one of the farm's sheep
	+ Evelyn Krape also voices some alley cats
* Charles Bartlett as a cow
* Michael Edward-Stevens as a horse
* Nathan Kress as a puppy that lives on the streets.
* Paul Livingston as a chef at the charity event
* Kim Story as the judge
* John Upton as a boy at the hospital

The fish are voiced by Al Mancini and Larry Moss.

Additional character voices were provided by Lisa Bailey, Balyne Barbosa, Victor Brandt, Jeannie Elias, Pippa Grandison, J. D. Hall, Mark Hammond, Barbara Harris, Wendy Kamenoff, Scott Leavenworthy, Julie Oppenheimer, Deborah Packer, Roger Rose, Carly Schroeder, Joseph Sicari, Aaron Spann, Drew Lexi Thomas, and Naomi Watts.