The New Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie Felt Like It Would Never End

Movie Review:

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2021)

Rating: 3 out of 10 stars

Overview

Pros

• The animated style is fun and quirky
• True to the book series in many ways

Cons

• Unlikeable characters are fine, but usually there has to be a good reason for characters to be unlikeable. The characters in this movie are all unlikeable and for no particular reason.
• Cringey, gross, obnoxious storyline
• Did not leave me feeling satisfied
• Even though it was a short movie, it felt super long because it was not enjoyable

Warning: Spoilers Below!

Review

This movie sucked. A combination of an obnoxious, selfish protagonist with unlikeable supporting characters made it a drag, but so did the storyline itself. Any movie where boogers and moldy cheese are major plot changers is not for me.

The main character Greg and his best friend Rowley are starting middle school and having a hard time fitting in, mostly because pretty much everyone in the school is a snob or jerk. I am not kidding when I say I felt no attachment or liking for any of the characters whatsoever–they weren’t interesting enough to justify making them a pain in the neck.

Greg is continually a terrible friend. The only time he acts like a real friend to Rowley is at the end, but only after he realizes that first off, he would be dead last in any middle school popularity contest, and secondly, without Rowley he has literally no desirable friends. It seemed more like he was trying to cut his losses than anything else.

Greg makes fun of things Rowley enjoys. He plays a game called “rumble trike,” where Rowley cycles down a road and Greg throws a football at him. Not only is this pointlessly dangerous, it is also one-sided. Greg obviously knows it is dangerous because he will never take a turn on the trike. And when Greg knocks Rowley off his trike, he takes a long time to actually be concerned like a decent human being. Then when Rowley gets some short-lived popularity from breaking his arm and having a cast everyone can sign, Greg tries to mooch off him and then BRAGS about being the one who broke Rowley’s arm.

I remember thinking the book series was okay. I read most of it as a child. But this movie had all the aspects I hated in the books, amplified.

The only redeeming feature was the animated style of the movie, which looked close to the book’s style. It was a stylistically sound choice, I’ll give it that.

But overall, this was a charmless animated version of Jeff Kinney’s popular book series. I would not recommend it for anyone.