John Corrado

Inspired by Pixar’s 1998 second feature A Bug’s Life, the Disney Plus series A Real Bug’s Life puts us on the ground to document the lives of real insects around the world across five half-hour episodes narrated by Awkwafina.

Produced by National Geographic, A Real Bug’s Life begins on the streets of New York City (Episode 1 – The Big City), where we follow a jumping spider trying to survive, amidst a bug landscape of cockroaches, flies, and ants climbing through crevices in the pavement in order to not get squashed by shoes.

From here, the series follows orchid bees and firecutter ants in the Latin American rainforest (Episode 2 – Welcome to the Jungle), invasive fire ants in a Texan backyard (Episode 3 – Braving the Backyard), a dung beetle and acacia ant in the African Savanna (Episode 4 – Land of Giants), and a queen bumblebee on an English farm, where spiders lay eggs and aphids pose a threat to plants (Episode 5 – The Busy Farm).

The series achieves this on-the-ground look inside these nine different bug worlds trough a mix of micro cinematography and CGI (“some scenes have been graphically enhanced or were filmed under controlled conditions,” a post-script in the credits states, but it assures us that “all scenes represent accurate animal behaviour”). It doesn’t shy away from the violence of the insect world, from ants being dramatically tossed off the hot dog they are eating by a street sweeper’s broom, to closeups of “ladybug assassins” sucking out aphids.

Aside from the name, A Real Bug’s Life doesn’t actually share that much in common with the Pixar flick, and plays more like a miniature version of a Disneynature documentary. Which is to say that, however striking some of the images can be, the often jokey narration is aimed more at kids (“hey, this is a family show!” Awkwafina warns over footage of mating doodlebugs). The voiceover leans into juvenile gross out humour at times, and the show can be more than a little gross if you don’t enjoy seeing creepy crawlies, with more than a few scenes of flies landing on poop.

More broadly, the show touches on the importance of conserving habitats for pollinators, exploring cycle of life and balance of nature type of themes. “Every day, mini dramas are unfolding in our big world, and they totally pass us by,” Awkwafina tells us in voiceover, and this reminder that all forms of life – no matter how small – play a role in our natural environment may well be the mission statement of the show.

This is driven home when showing the importance of milkweed in Episode 3, which feeds the monarch butterflies that make their way from Mexico to Texas and eventually fly into Canada. The narration can’t entirely enliven something that can feel a bit dry at times, and occasionally gets in the way. But A Real Bug’s Life is often well-crafted on a visual level (including shots inside an elephant trunk), and should prove educational for younger viewers who are into bugs.

A Real Bug’s Life is now available to stream exclusively on Disney+.