Diary of a Wimpy Kid Review

 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a computer animated comedy film based on the 2007 book of the same name. It also serves as a reboot of the live-action film series. The movie is produced by 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Animation, and Color Force and distributed by Disney+. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is written by Jeff Kinney and directed by Swinton Scott.

The story is Greg is a scrawny yet ambitious kid with big dreams. However, if he wants to achieve these dreams first he's gotta survive middle school. Greg is going to go on quite a journey about how to get through both this hilarious and disastrous stage of his life, and truly accept himself.

Initial Reaction

I was very curious about this movie since it was announced. Cause in all honest, despite what the critical reception was I was never impressed with the live-action movies. They always looked like tv movies to me, only with a bit more of a budget. So, when I heard and saw this new animated movie I had much higher hopes. Especially since the writer of the books, Jeff Kinney was going to be writing this verison of the series.

Cons

Now this criticism is nothing new, but I fully agree about the runtime complaint. This movie really would've benefitted had the runtime been 20 maybe 25 minutes longer. Because of the current runtime we have, a lot of stories got resolved really quick.

Middle Ground

One gray area with the movie is the humor. I did chuckle and giggle had a couple of scenes and lines. But there were also some moments when I didn't laugh at all. The other mix bag is the voice acting. It's nothing that I really found bad, not by any means, but the actors/actress really should've been told to put just a bit more emotion in their roles. The last thing I'll touch upon in this section is the animation. Honestly, it's not bad in my opinion, it does take some time to get used to though. Like I said, it's not awful, I've seen animated movies with WAY worse animation than this film.

Pros

One pro I gotta give the movie is that you can relate to it. You can relate to the pressure of having to go from one grade of your school to getting to a grade where things get a lot more crazy. And you can also relate to the fact that you and your best friend got into an argument, and in the end find a way to become friends again. The last thing I'll give credit for is the faithfulness. This movie really did adapted the book a pretty good manner.

Overall Diary of a Wimpy Kid is just alright. To me, it should be by no means labeled the worst movie of 2021. You can relate to it and it was faithful to the book. Where the movie should improve for the upcoming sequel so they can improve, is work on the humor, the acting, and bump up the quality of the animation. The only thing that really hurts the movie is the runtime.

My final rating is Okay.

Well that's going to do it for me. Come back on Monday, Dec 13th for my A Look Back at review the 2016 animated feature, Sing. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.