My son and husband have been reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books for a little more than a year. I hear them giggle, hoot and holler from the other room as they sit and share passages. I must admit it makes me a little bit jealous. They share in a boy-secret world that the girl in me, will never, ever, quite get.
We got our tickets, bought our popcorn and my little family (including two daughters) settled into our dark blue seats and sticky floor, waiting to see how this one-dimensional handwritten story would play out. Gratefully, the story started to play out on the familiar lined paper with penciled in stick-like characters popping in and out of the story. Gregory is a little reminiscent of a younger, and absolutely not cool yet, Ferris Bueller. Without much of a ramp-up, we were all laughing out loud. Finally, I was getting a peek into the secret boy-world.
The familiar characters are at times slightly painful, to the child left inside; from the red-headed-freckled-face-big-eye-glass wearing hyper-geek, to the sinister yet benign high-school bullies, we all remember these kids on some level. We love to hate those stuck-up-pretty-girls and there was always that one nasty-control-freak-little girl with a theater complex. Who doesn’t have a tale about an older brother that brings a whole new meaning to the phrase relentless torture, Dairy of a Wimpy Kid includes all of these and more. Every character from our pathetic middle-school experience is thrown at us much to our humiliation and hopefully at this point in our lives, relief.
Zachary Gordon plays the confused yet anxious-to-be-popular 6th grader, and Diary author, Gregory Heffley. Gordon seems adequate in the role at first, yet grows by leaps-and-bounds as the movie unfolds.
Robert Capron is Gregory’s chubby best-friend Rowley Jefferson. Capron is a young actor to keep an eye on. He processes great depth and in-sight and does so effortlessly.
Devon Bostick literally steals the thunder of every frame. Bostick is the epitome of the creepy, lying, manipulative older brother. You can’t help but uncomfortably smile at every disgusting and repulsive utterance from Bostick.
Strangely, I wanted to smack the parents. Their dialogue reminds one that this is a pseudo-fantasy story instead of a realistic one. However, the issue of the “grottie-piece-of-ageless-swiss-cheese that curses all who touch it,” should have clued, shame on me! But this is a journey from the point of view of Gregory, and we are along for his ride.
The movie is a bit too long and would have been served with a dose of creative editing. There was one fatal production flaw that can be seen during a pivotal winter scene. The problem... the snow looks very, very fake! For me, special effects should be used as a storytelling tool. The trick is to make it invisible. Once the magic is revealed, C'est la vie! Another problem was with the director and his decision to break the forth-wall in the first five-minutes. If you are going to break the wall, knock it down, otherwise it is confusing. Gregory addresses the audience, à la Ferris Bueller, but this film is not Ferris Bueller's Day Off, not even close.
(The Forth Wall: The term also applies to the boundary between any fictional setting and its audience. When this boundary is "broken”, for example by an actor speaking to the audience directly through the camera, it is called "breaking the fourth wall.")
Dairy of a Wimpy Kid is a movie ages 8 to 80 will enjoy, together. I left with my family smiling and feeling that the $48.50 for the tickets and $17 for munchies and ICEES, seemed well worth our family’s time and limited budget.
Mommy The Movie Critic Rating: Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Under Six Crowd: B+
Seven - Eleven Crowd: A-
Tween: A-Adults: A-
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