Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) has just entered the sixth grade. These are his (mis)adventures.  

CRITIQUE

I tried to watch Diary of a Wimpy Kid (the movie based on a series of best-selling illustrated novels by Jeff Kinney) for a second time when the Blu-ray arrived in the mail. I really did. After all, if your editor sends you something and asks you to review it the only thing a person can reasonably be expected to do is to try and give it their best effort and I wanted to do just that.

But in the case of this film I just couldn’t do it. I lasted about 15, maybe 20 minutes before all of the over the top hysteria began to drive me batty and gave me a headache. At that point, I just knew I wasn’t going to be able to give this one a second shot, and it’s almost $64-million box office take and 54-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes aside this is just one family-friendly motion picture I absolutely cannot stand.

Here’s some of what I said about it back in March in my theatrical review:

“Quite frankly this was not the movie for me, and while I’m not familiar with the source material I have trouble believing the legions of pint-sized fans that adore it are going to be happy with how their favorite tomes have been adapted. It plays like an overproduced Disney Channel sitcom, everything amplified to such an insane degree finding an actual moment of human reality is virtually impossible. The thing is “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” is barely a half hour long, a length much easier to endure than this film’s 90 minutes, a person only able to take so much hyperactivity before it becomes intolerable.

I knew I was in trouble the moment protagonist Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) walked into Middle School for the very first time. The whole moment reeked of movie chaos, not real life Middle School chaos, the kids acting like psychopaths running around like chickens with their heads cutoff. Not only is the scene absurd, any chance a person could relate to Greg and his journey through a new grade level are thrown instantly out the window. It doesn’t matter if his diary entries realistically read and sometimes make both humorous and touching points viewers young and old can understand because the world surrounding this document isn’t realistic, the two having no relation making both seem worse than they maybe are.

I find it interesting that it took four different writers to adapt something so relatively simple (kid experiences first year of Middle School discovering it’s better to be true to himself and his best friend than it is to be popular). As for director Thor Freudenthal, he handles things here the same way he did with 2009’s Hotel for Dogs, confusing energy with acting and frenzy with subtly. The whole movie never slows down, never spends enough time getting inside its hero’s head and never allows the colorful supporting cast to be anything more than caricatures searching for a punch line. All-in-all, Diary of a Wimpy Kid was a serious waste of my time, and while the target audience will probably feel a tiny bit different I can’t imagine they will enough to make this hugely forgettable adaptation anything close to a success.”

If anything has changed it is my ability to tolerate drivel like this. Kids do seem to like it, however, so for parents in need of a hi-def babysitter I guess Diary of a Wimpy kid is a title they’re going to have to at the very least consider. Just don’t ask me watch it, too. I can’t do it for a second time. I just can’t.

THE VIDEO

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is presented in a 50GB dual-layered 1080p/AVC-encoded 1.85:1 widescreen transfer. The film is surprisingly colorful considering the source material is anything but, and as much as I dislike the movie itself it must be said this Blu-ray is an extremely flattering visual representation of what I saw in the theatre.

THE AUDIO

Available audio includes English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish Dolby Surround and French Dolby Surround tracks with optional English SDH, Portuguese, Cantonese, Mandarin and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

The extras here are relatively good, I must admit.

Inside Greg’s Deleted Diary Pages fans will discover a solid collection of Deleted Scenes as well as three new shorts, two starring Fregley (Grayson Russell) and the other – and easily the most amusing of the trio – centering around Chirag (Karan Brar).

The final addition to this section are Rowley’s Lost Zee-Wee Mama Cartoons, and while their humor is lost on me I’m quite positive the target audience will probably revel in them.

The disc also comes with an Audio Commentary with director Thor Freudenthal and screenwriter Gabe Sachs which is far easier to listen to than I imagined it was going to be. Not that the pair convinced me to like their movie, I just didn’t hate sitting on my couch listening them talk about it while I folded my laundry.

Early pressings of this three-disc Blu-ray includes the DVD and a Digital Copy of the feature film along with a collectible booklet.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I more or less hated Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but it must be said that this Blu-ray presentation is fairly decent and that adolescent fans will probably be fairly eager to add it to their collection.