Chris Noonan
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Scott Kay's vocals may be a bit too reminiscent of Christine Cavanaugh's "Babe" work, but what worked once works again here.
George Miller's Babe drew deep inspiration from Charlotte's Web, with less showbiz pretense and infinitely better results.
Evidently modeled on the familiar 1973 animated film (which featured Debbie Reynolds and Henry Gibson as Charlotte and Wilbur), but sensibly dispensing with the eminently forgettable songs, this new live-action version carries the additional burden of following in the hoofprints of a modern classic in the genre, George Miller's "Babe."
The other is the 1995 film Babe, which pioneered live-action talking animal movies, and remains the standard by which they are judged.
Comparisons to Babe are expected and warranted, but one thing missing form this story is James Cromwell.
It may not have the perkiness of "Babe," that hoof-warming winner of 1995, but "Charlotte's Web" -- another movie featuring an animatronic pig -- plays to its biggest strength: the magic of a good story simply told.
Babe deserves a proud place next to movies like: The Wizard of Oz, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Muppet Movie, E.T., and The Witches.
In terms of concept, it's like a magical yoking of Charlotte's Web to The Muppet Movie, with a slew of real animals, so-called "animatronic" creations, and computer animation all collaborating on a fairy tale about finding one's rightful place in a harsh world.
Unlike in George Orwell's Animal Farm, here the pig is the instrument of unity and mediation.
The animated Animal Farm is darkly drawn and cynical in tone, and is remarkably faithful to George Orwell's dystopian fable of totalitarian times.
Not since George Orwell's novel "Animal Farm" has a community of critters been so efficiently harnessed to fantasy.
What's true in George Orwell's Animal Farm also applies to Babe.
It reminds me of George Miller, who went from creating the post-apocalyptic Mad Max series to pulling a filmmaking 180 degrees when he co-wrote another talking animal movie, Babe .
Talking animals work much better if you slow things down like “Babe” (1995) or dub voices over real animals like “Homeward Bound” (1993).
When we think of George Miller’s glorious Babe diptych, do we immediately recall how the hero’s mouth moved?
But the choice to take an existing hand-drawn animated film and adapt it, rather than creating an original story (such as Babe in 1995), forces the filmmakers to tamp down the sense of imagination that marked Disney’s animation renaissance in the early 1990s.
Peter Rabbit was more like Babe , in that it was a hyperreal rural fantasy filmed in Australia – but it lacked the groundedness that George Miller created through a seamless combination of CGI, puppetry and real animals.
In different hands (say someone like baroque hitmaker Tim Burton or even the Babe and Happy Feet vein of George Miller), this content would thrust to silly adventures and loud stages that wouldn’t suit it.
The film feels like a step back from the two Babe films Fury Road’s George Miller produced and directed in the 1990s, which brought a talking pig to life in cruder but infinitely warmer fashion.
(Non-distracting talking animals, meanwhile, have been a staple since “Babe” back in 1995.)
With talking animals, The Jungle Book is a more muscular version of Babe crossed with the dynamic blend of live-action and digital effects of the Wachowski Sisters’ Speed Racer, George Miller’s Mad Max Fury Road and Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Effects house Rhythm & Hues has set the standard in the CGI subgenre we could call “animated snouts” in films including Babe (1995), Cats and Dogs (2001) and Charlotte’s Web (2006).
It’s “Charlotte’s Web” or “Babe” (1995) sans the anthropomorphic cuteness.
Much like 1995’s Babe , Buck is given humanistic traits (physical reactions, expressions, etc) that often push the boundary of believability (at one point he convinces Harrison Ford’s gruff, isolated traveller John Thornton to give up drinking), but seeing as how some of the situations Michael Green’s script calls for would be near impossible with an actual dog – animal-on-animal violence, human-on-animal violence, the drastic weather conditions of the icy Canadian setting – the CGI decision, distracting as it may be, makes sense; plus, following the backlash A Dog’s Purpose managed when footage of its animals being mistreated went public, The Call of the Wild ‘s decision is all the more sound.
Although some films with talking four-legged friends - like “Babe” (1995), “The Lion King” (2019) or even “The Cat from Outer Space” (1978) - have a nestled place in moviedom, thankfully in “The Call of the Wild”, the computer-constructed pooches - including our sympathetic hero - behave like dogs and aren’t asking one other, “Hey, when will we break for dinner?”
For the titular Peter Rabbit (James Corden) and his sisters, Flopsy (Margot Robbie), Mopsy (Elizabeth Debicki), and Cottontail (Daisy Ridley) are all superlatively realistic-looking creations: brought into life by the artists at Animal Logic, the Australian VFX and animation studio that has been one of the world's foremost creators of impressively real-looking animal CGI since their role in making the farmyard population of 1995's Babe look so profoundly convincing (their "photorealistic animals" animated features include the delightful Happy Feet and its sequel , as well as Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole , which is a crap movie, but a beautiful crap movie * ).
The fact that the action occurs on two different physical scales creates a visual problem Gluck has little interest in solving – as George Miller did triumphantly with actual animals in his Babe movies.
As I say in my video review, this certainly is not as effortlessly charming, winsome and warm as the Paddington films or 1995’s barnyard gem Babe , but it does quite well on its own thanks to terrifically realized CGI rabbits and the vocal work of James Corden in the title role.
If one is interested in seeing Happy Feet, the latest from filmmaker George Miller (who scripted and produced the similarly themed Babe), the place to see it is at your local IMAX.
The misfit tale follows a well-worn arc, familiar to director George Miller, who produced the charming "Babe."
Miller was the driving force behind the popular 1990s features Babe (which he co-wrote and produced) and Babe: Pig in the City (which he directed, co-wrote, and produced).
"Happy Feet" is the brainchild of George Miller, the movie's co-writer and director, who previously brought us "Babe," "Babe: Pig in the City," "The Witches of Eastwick," and all of the "Mad Max" movies.
The film, which George Miller ("Babe," "The Witches of Eastwick," "Mad Max") based on a script he co-wrote with John Collee, Judy Morris and Warren Coleman, seamlessly interweaves several compelling storylines, from the light and the pleasant to the downright dark and unpleasant.
Director George Miller did a much better job of tight, simple storytelling with the screenplay he co-wrote for Babe, and the directing he did with its follow-up, Babe: Pig in the City, both of which were charming without being overly preachy.
Full marks if you recognize the actress to be Lucy Boynton, who once appeared in the 2006 film Miss Potter as the young Beatrix Potter.
A friendly face, Darren (newcomer Ben Carolan), gives him advice that also helps Conor meet the older, more worldly model Raphina (Lucy Boynton, "Miss Potter"), whom Conor offers a music video gig.
But things start to come together when she crash-lands on Earth in the middle of a Los Angeles Blockbuster Video somewhere around 1995, which you know because there’s a “Babe” poster and a cardboard display for “True Lies.”
Like the original, this technically impressive sequel was directed by George Miller, the Australian who shepherded the "Babe" talking-pig movies.
Again it's George Miller who co-wrote, co-produced, and directed the film, Mr. Miller the same fellow who gave us things as varied as "Babe," "Babe: Pig in the City," "The Witches of Eastwick," and all of the "Mad Max" movies.
Then he embarked upon his children's phase, producing the original Babe (1995) before directing the awesome, underappreciated sequel Babe: Pig in the City (1998).
Which can also be said of filmmaker George Miller, who went from making “Mad Max” sequels to making children’s films — “Babe” and “Happy Feet” — and their sequels.
After all, Miller made " Babe ,"Â another great children's film that was refreshingly unsentimental about the animal world.
Five years after those toe-tapping penguins sashayed into cinemas, George Miller (Babe) returns to Antarctica with Happy Feet Two.
(George Miller did a vastly better job of keeping his meanings and sympathies straight with the human and animal cast of Babe: Pig in the City.)
Hugo Weaving, who voiced the sheepdog Rex in Babe (1995) and played Agent Smith in the Matrix series, portrays Abberline, the intrepid Inspector from Scotland Yard.
A blurb on the video box from critic Dann Gire of The Chicago Daily Herald proclaims it "The Citizen Kane of talking pig pictures."
The box for the home video for Chris Noonan’s Babe (1995) makes the claim that the film is “the Citizen Kane of talking pig movies,” and while that’s a safer claim than many such comparisons (e.g., the now embarrassing assertion that Purple Rain was the ”Citizen Kane of rock movies"), I think George Miller’s darker sequel film, Babe: Pig in the City (1998), is probably more in the Wellesian realm.
Chicken Run should appeal to the many fans of 1995's Babe.
Babe deserves a proud place next to movies like: The Wizard of Oz, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Muppet Movie, E.T., and The Witches.