Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie Review Focus on the Family

Movie Review

Greg Heffley is a journal-keeping wisecracker who's but trying to somehow survive the hazing, harassing and full general horror of … middle school. Merely different all those other half-size sojourners, Greg has a plan: If he'south got to get through this torturous time, he'southward gonna practice so in style. His trunk may exist small, but he'southward certain his brain is huge. And with a fiddling artistic planning and some pecking order manipulation he'll be at the meridian of the social ladder in no time.

The plan has to work. Information technology'southward his just promise since his home is no condom refuge. Between a sadistic older brother (Rodrick) who would rather rub his nasty armpits on Greg's face than really talk to him, and an un-potty-trainable kid brother who gets all of his parent's adoring attention, Greg feels lost in the wasteland of tween obscurity.

His first "look at me" endeavor school-side, though, doesn't work out so well. Being a wrestling team sports hero is tougher than it looks. Especially since runny-nosed outcasts and pigtailed girls can toss him to the mat with ease. Fifty-fifty his overweight and completely hopeless best friend ends upward getting more positive attending than he does.

So it'southward on to the next idea. And the side by side. Simply each can't-miss scheme somehow keeps blowing upward in his face. Until the unthinkable happens: Greg contracts a horrible instance of … nuclear cooties.

Positive Elements

Although Greg rolls his eyes, his best friend Rawley has a childlike innocence that he brings to virtually situations. Rawley says his mom told him to "exist myself and people will similar me." Greg, however, retorts with, "That would be skillful advice if you were someone else." The point is clear, though: Rawley's mom is right. Rawley is a devoted friend willing to always believe the best in people, even though Greg usually doesn't return the sentiment. Rawley selflessly puts himself in impairment'south way to help his friend escape Rodrick's wrath.

More life lessons emerge when, later in the picture, Rawley finally realizes Greg has lied and purposely set up him upwards for a autumn. Rawley sadly admits, "You're not a good friend." After the friendship dissolves, Greg'southward mom encourages her son to brand amends, saying, "When somebody's worth information technology, y'all have to put yourself out at that place." And Greg somewhen realizes the error of his ways and steps upward to salve Rawley's reputation and regain his friendship. A girl, watching from the sidelines, then steps up to support Greg's adept choice with, "Dandy, Heffley. Not bad."

Rawley is punished by a teacher for something he didn't exercise. But once the truth comes out, the teacher apologizes and rewards Rawley for his positive choices.

Despite the fact that Greg thinks his parents are pretty uninvolved with him, they do offering him support and proficient advice. Dad encourages Greg, praising him for his initiative and difficult work. And Mom says, "You have to trust your gut and do the right affair … because it's our choices that shape us."

A girl adds perspective to the pain when she asserts that in a few years all the horrendous things that really upset kids when they're in middle school "won't hateful anything anymore."

Spiritual Elements

Greg looks for popularity guidance in his brother's yearbook, maxim, "This affair is like a Bible." Rodrick scares Greg and Rawley with a Halloween story most a local forest full of devil worshippers.

Sexual Content

While excavation under Rodrick's bed for a yearbook, Greg finds a Moto Mamas magazine that sports a comprehend photo of a buxom, bikini summit-wearing model sitting on a motorcycle. Greg uses the magazine to get Rodrick in trouble by giving it to their footling brother, Manny. (Mom catches Manny looking at the pictures.)

Greg imagines himself equally a muscular, swimsuit-wearing adult. At a school dance Greg'south mom'south dress reveals cleavage. And Rawley and his mom perform a trip the light fantastic toe routine that includes slapping their backsides.

In Hog Latin, boys talk about a girl classmate beingness "hot." Puzzled, Greg and Rawley discuss how girls can call back butts are "beautiful." Rawley then innocently tells another male child that his butt is beautiful.

Violent Content

Greg and Rawley fall victim to several kid-level pratfalls. For instance, though Greg imagines himself performing pro wrestling moves on young man students, he's actually the one who gets thumped. A nerdy kid and a girl named Patty, Greg'due south archenemy, both pound Greg to the mat repeatedly during wrestling do—including arm-twisting, confront-mashing and a boot to Greg's crotch. The kids' gym teacher demonstrates mat-slamming wrestling moves on a fellow coach.

The boys get pushed and banged around on the school sports field as well. One skinny child is tackled by a grouping of bigger boys. While dressed every bit a tree in a school play Greg is pummeled with apples and tackled by Patty. Some other kid dressed as a tree falls face-first and reports that he broke a molar. Teenagers spray Greg and Rawley with a foam-spewing hose, then chase the boys, threatening to shell them upwards. Greg accidentally scrapes a big swath of paint off the teens' truck with a weed whacker.

Greg hits the front wheel of Rawley's speeding Big Wheel, sending his friend flying in the air. We so see Rawley in a cast with a cleaved wrist. Greg draws a stick figure cartoon of a male child who has his human foot eaten away in a puddle of acid.

Rough or Profane Language

Kids blurt out everything from "jeez" to "crap," with "good god" and "freak job" layered in between. Rodrick takes things a step farther, calling his sibling a "turd burglar" and a "tool."

Drug and Alcohol Content

None.

Other Negative Elements

Diary of a Wimpy Kid sports two rather sizable pools of negative junk: a lake of poor choices and an bounding main of toilet jokes.

From time to time we're reminded that choices matter and that good ones lead to skillful results, but likewise often the bad multifariousness is in that location just for laughs or gags. Greg lies to his mother. And he repeatedly mistreats and speaks badly of his friend Rawley. For instance, when given safety patrol duties, Greg forces lilliputian kids into a muddy hole at a structure site. A neighbor sees and thinks it was Rawley who did the human activity. Greg lets his friend take the arraign. Greg too lets a hyperactive kid consume his handbag full of jelly beans—which sends the kid into a frenzy. He once hurt Patty'south feelings past yelling, "Patty, Patty is a fat, has a face just similar a ratty."

And he'south not the movie's simply kid exuding negative peer pressure. A teen forces Rawley to scrape a rancid piece of cheese off the ground and take a bite. Patty spends a fair amount of fourth dimension terrorizing Greg. Rodrick tells his brother to never volunteer for or work difficult at anything ("That way no ane will expect anything of you lot").

Toilet humor, on the other hand … is dripping on the other hand and everything else. Manny sits at the breakfast table on his infant potty and lets loose during breakfast. And that'southward only i of several, uh, running urine gags—from peeing snowmen to a scene involving a surprised Greg who turns and urinates all over his brother. Nosotros see middle school students sitting on toilets in doorless stalls—a sight that prompts Greg to say, "I'm not pooping 'til I'g in high school."

From there we visit various other mucous-picking and gaseous-release moments that don't really bear repeating.

Determination

When author Jeff Kinney's best-selling serial of Wimpy Child novels started hitting bookshelves in 2007, they hooked young readers with a fun comic-book-meets-novel blend. Each edition contained short, sharply funny tales and winsomely appealing stick figure drawings. Each was presented every bit if information technology were Greg Heffley'southward doodle-covered journal. Each could be read through in an afternoon.

Some parents and kids loved the novels' acerbic take on tweens' tribal travails. Others felt the cardinal character fell well shy of a good role model.

"I tin definitely respect the statement that Greg is flawed," Kinney said in a wickedlocal.com interview. "In fact, that's where all of the humor of the book comes from—his flaws and imperfections. I think that parents that complain about that aren't getting the joke, and don't realize that their kids understand that Greg isn't perfect, and that's what makes him funny."

Does it? On film, at the very least, the reply is emphatically no. Greg is wincingly clueless about how his bad choices tin impact family unit and friends, and when those choices are fabricated by a flesh-and-blood kid on a behemothic moving picture screen instead of a little pencil cartoon in a pseudo-journal, everything takes on a much more negative feel.

That's particularly true when Wimpy Child veers into an obsession with body functions and fluids. Seeing a stick effigy accidentally peeing on his brother or sitting on a schoolhouse toilet is quite a different experience from seeing child actors doing the aforementioned affair in living color. And when those embarrassing $.25 are mixed with an countless goopy stream of booger-urine-poop-fart jokes, you very quickly brainstorm longing for a notebook of your own to go along you otherwise occupied.

On the fashion out of the screening I attended, I overheard an adult annotate that 20 years ago Diary of a Wimpy Kid might have been his favorite film. And while I had a singled-out feeling he was beingness very generous, I sort of understood. I remember a point in my life when the flick's "this too shall pass" encouragement to kids and its friend-reclaiming ending would have seemed thoughtful. I also remember a brief window of time when the mere mention of the discussion pee would have left me doubled over in childish laughter. I'm not so easily impressed anymore. And it might be that kids these days aren't either.

This piffling conversation also drifted in my direction after the pic: A mom asked her vi-year-sometime escort, "Did you like information technology, large guy?" The tyke screwed up his brow and replied, "Uh … no."

Maybe we just have a better grade of kids today. And if that's true, it'due south high fourth dimension we made a better class of film for them to meet.

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Source: https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/diary-of-a-wimpy-kid/

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