Forgettable Wimpy Kid an Insufferable Waste
Based on a series of best-selling illustrated novels by Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a movie going in I knew nothing about. Coming out of the theatre afterwards I could only fantasize about that still being true. I found this cinematic exploration of the immensely popular books to be tedious at best, insufferable at worst, and by the time it was all over the headache I was nursing was so humongous it took a plethora of aspirin, a cold compress and a viewing of the new The Neverending Story – a kid’s film well worth revisiting – blu-ray to make it finally go away.
Robert Capron, Zachary Gordon and Chloe Grace Moretz in 20th Century Fox's Diary of a Wimpy Kid
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.
- Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: ê1/2 (out of 4)
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