Um Porquinho Chamado Babe

Thanks to well-trained live animals, clever voice characterizations and a big dash of muppetry from Henson's Creature Shop, Babe and his barnyard friends not only walk the walk and trot the trot, they also talk the talk.

Babe is not, strictly speaking, a kid's movie. It is a preposterously funny fable that strikes a chord with adults, too.

For children, the movie will play like a storybook come to life. Adults, at first, will marvel at the special effects and puppetry. But ultimately, they'll be won over by the nuances of a story that finds a fresh way to deliver a timeless message.

Australian director Chris Noonan and producer George Miller show what real talent and imagination can do, even without big-name humans as costars.

Here's the summer's sleeper for kids and their parents, a terrific picture that takes a lot of risks and makes them all pay off in a charming story about a pig who fancies himself a sheepdog -- or sheep-pig.

A film that is exceptional in its technical effects and its graceful ability to entertain.

A lovely, intelligent gem of G-rated entertainment that is also rib-tickling funny.

One of the five greatest family films ever made. Possibly the best. Pure magic.

Its seemingly effortless synthesis of humor and pathos [is] almost as wonderful as is its ability to capture the sense of awe and fear that attends youth's initial exposure to the big wide world.

Unlike subsequent talking-animal pictures, Babe is a movie in which the human leads matter as much as the animals, or more so.

Much to my surprise, I found Babe charming in an eccentric, oddly tough-minded sort of way. And if it isn't quite good enough to change my mind about the entire critter-chat genre, it is certainly good enough to recommend.

He's brave and bright, good-natured and ambitious, naive and vulnerable. All in all, he's probably the most winsome orphan to appear on the screen since Freddie Bartholomew impersonated David Copperfield 60 years ago.

[It's] a comedy of animal manners that is much funnier and much cannier than any recent movie about human relationships: a lovely, stubbornly idiosyncratic fable of aspiration and survival.

It has a surprising charm.

The characters (both animal and human) are solidly conceived, and the storytelling and visuals are expertly fashioned.

Babe provides a stunning revisionist take on barnyard politics, and may change the whole way we view pigs politically.

A dazzling family entertainment with enormous charm that utilizes breathtaking technical innovation.

If only people would be more like these animals, the world, though hardly saner, would certainly be a lot more fun.

It's a clever, witty, touching piece of work that, coincidentally enough, is also a decidedly excellent date movie. Really.

Babe is a movie made with charm and wit, and unlike some family movies it does not condescend, not for a second.