A Real Bug's Life

My favorite nature documentaries are about insects and microscopic organisms. So I was pleasantly surprised to watch these over the course of a few days. I thoroughly enjoyed the video footage and cinematography but the narration from Awkwafina, the narrator, ALMOST killed it for me... and not in a good way.

I think that she could have been a decent narrator for the series but needed to take the role more seriously. The childish script from the Disney production team was a part of it but her tone and "jokes" really pushed it over the edge.

Video Score: 8/10 Audio Score: 3/10

Total Score: 5.5/10.

The narrator and script really let this production down. It is clearly aimed at 8-10 year olds (not surprising for Disney) but the voice over track was very annoying to the point where muted it half way through series. The script lacked proper facts and any depth of detail.

Captions for the names of the bugs including common and scientific names along with a fact sheet would have enhanced the educational nature of the programme. And instead of sitting on the fence 'suggesting' bugs are good and necessary it should have been at the forefront of the narrative.

This would have gotten 2 star if it wasn't for the amazing camera work and my love of bugs as macro photographer.

I've never watched a wildlife documentary that mentioned twerking. Seriously.

This narrator was literally as bad as it gets. Of all the wonderful voices out there why would they choose this women, her voice was very distracting and ruined it for me. My kids didn't seem to notice but for the adults I have to say it took away from the story.

Positives, it looked great. Most Disney stuff looks great. I have noticed Disney's quality in everything has gone way down over the years. Everything LOOKS amazing but that's not good enough. Everything else was good but ruined by the narrator and some of the dialog.

"A Real Bug's Life" (2024) is a docuseries about what the title implies, bugs. This series is a not too serious view on the lives of bugs in 5 episodes.

The reason why i say: "not too serious", is because of the silly music, and sound effects. For example zooming in on an ant trail and it sounding like a highway with cars or a spider webbing up it's sleeping space and it sounding like it is taping up something with scotch tape. This can be amusing in a childish kind of way, but it is not what I specifically am looking for in nature documentaries.

Casting Awkwafina as a narrator was good in my opinion, she has been getting a lot of big roles so this is a good change of pace. The only thing that bothers me is the way they went with the dialogue, this is definitely not my cup of tea.

The humor and music they use in this series is not particularly amusing to me, hearing rap or them making a joke about a spider dreaming about seeing a fly in all of it's eyes is not the thing i am looking for when i am wanting to learn about certain critters and creatures.

I really enjoyed the close-ups on every creature so we could really enjoy what they look like in high quality footage, this is done with the latest and newest technology of course.

I get that it is called after a beloved Pixar animations movie and that the goal is not to be too serious, but in my opinion this is what makes it less like something i want to watch.

I have a 7 year old boy and a 5 year old girl and they both love it.

It can be hard to get kids to watch documentaries some times but my kids were glued to the screen for every episode. They give each insect a story and that along with the amazing camera work makes it feel like a movie which helps the kids stay engaged.

It isn't the most "educational" in terms of just throwing facts at you but it's a good one to introduce your young kids to if you want them to learn about insects as each episode teaches them about bugs that they will see in their back yard or city and what their role is in the city environment and made my kids want to go outside to see what insects they could find.

Nothing wrong with the voice actor but if you don't like Awkwafina you may not like it.