Yet another Disney Plus original, Chip 'n' Dale: Park Life takes everyone’s favorite chipmunk odd couple and puts them in… well… a park. The series premiered on Disney Plus today and while this isn’t a full series review, I wanted to pen my thoughts on the premiere.
Park Life is a colorful, feel-good type show, the plots are simple and predictable. Three sections were blotted together into one anthology with each section entailing a completely different story as the genre demands.
Each of these episodes are boiled down to something like, don’t steal and do the right thing or just because you’re friends that doesn’t mean you’ll always want to spend all your time together. The three sections aren’t ground-breaking or really unique in any way aside from “oh look, there’s those chipmunks from Rescue Rangers.” All three of the sections, I could tell the vibe they were meaning to give just from the first few seconds of the episode.
Unfortunately, this series falls into something I call “Minion Speak,” though I’m sure there’s a better name I just can’t think of as this type of thing has existed long before the Minions. Minion Speak is where the lead characters communicate, but they communicate without words, only grunts and noises. You cannot understand a word said, luckily, I could cue into the clear jokes made, but most of them simply are a bit on the nose, though, the second section of the premiere was a bit out of left-field from time to time, it still felt a touch predictable.
Using this form of storytelling isn’t inherently a problem, it cuts costs quite a bit as dubbing doesn't have to be done and translators aren't needed.The series was made a by French studio, Xilam Animation. Some films can do wonders with it, but not Chip 'n' Dale: Park Life.
Their voices are just annoying and grating to listen to, I couldn’t imagine binging it or watching more than one episode at a time without having to fully dedicate yourself to having a purpose to watch it all in one sitting when it gets more episodes rather than just a “I’m bored, let’s binge something” mentality.
The animation is where the series shines in my eyes. It’s not overly complicated and in all honestly isn’t something you’d catch Disney dead using for a film for theaters, but for something on TV, it’s more than passable. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the Mickey Mouse Shorts from 2013 to 2019. Since the series relies heavily on the music and sound effects, Park Life has to make up for it by offering up expressive designs and I feel they did it very well.
At least with the pilot episode we have, I’ll have to pass on imploring people to go watch Chip ‘n’ Dale: Park Life as is, it’s just painfully nothing short of mediocre and a bit underwhelming. It isn’t terrible, but it isn’t good. It’s predictable and hard to binge, but it makes up for it with some decent enough animation.