Review: Welcome to the summer madness of Camp Splinterwood. Here, teenage Red, Chuck, Bomb and Stella are camped up at a colourful island, doing what they do the best – catapulting, slingshotting, getting thrown, rocketing through the trees, cannonballing and what have you. Basically, just crashing everywhere. This new Netflix series delivers a complete no-brainer with snappy episodes of cute and harmless plots and slapstick fun that will be lapped up by the children.
There are 16 episodes, each with a different tale but the overarching theme of madness and adventure remains constant. Much like the film, the series doesn’t take itself too seriously and is full of hijinks. However, this is also a bit of a dampener as some of the episodes seem like a drag despite a short runtime. And then there are some that are all fun like the ‘Big Bird Bake-off,’ ‘Much Ado About Pudding’ and ‘Splashageddon.’ Of course, there’s a huge variety and binging is easy because none of it ever gets overbearing, slightly repetitive, yes. Not so much of a problem for its target audience though.
It’s most entertaining when the four feathered friends are together. And it’s even more fun when Chuck and Bomb display blatant sycophancy for Red while Stella rolls her eye in indignation. The series goes easy on Red’s anger, who never really gets angry enough while there are a bunch of crazy other characters. The two of our favourites would have to be Neiderflyer, the mean bully and the camp’s no-nonsense director Lynette.