Written by Vickie
March 25, 2011
Recall, if you will, that I didn’t especially care for Diary of a Wimpy Kid. So, the prospect of a sequel was, likewise, met with an unenthusiastic reaction by yours truly. But you know what? Greg Heffley’s second big-screen outing actually isn’t half-bad.
All of the players return for this new misadventure, now under the first-time direction of animator David Bowers. Many of the problems that existed in the first film also pop up again in this one – the most obvious being the lack of a clear, defined, linear plot. It’s once again more a collection of vignettes than a single narrative, though it does cinch itself enough to create some semblance of storytelling order, and even manages to bring some much-needed (comparative) warmth to the proceedings.
In a very-general nutshell, this movie is all about now-seventh-grader Greg (Zachary Gordon) learning how to get along with his boorish, and still highly entertaining, older brother, Rodrick (Devon Bostick, who continues to steal the show). Rodrick lives to torment Greg, whether that means sabotaging his younger brother’s roller-rink rendezvous with the Cute Girl in Class (Peyton List) or delivering the odd smack in the back of the head. Their mom (Rachael Harris) yearns for her boys to get along, while their dad (Steve Zahn) remains a somewhat manic cipher who really could have been left out of the movie altogether, frankly.
After the brothers get in one scrape too many, they’re sentenced to a weekend alone together while their parents inexplicably head to a water park (?) without them. Will they destroy each other and the house, or will they actually defy expectations and logic and bond? Will Greg’s sunshine-y best pal Rowley (Robert Capron) go along with the shenanigans? If you’re over age ten, you’ll probably be more than able to telegraph exactly how it all plays out.
Thankfully, the filmmakers wisely toned down Greg’s grating personality and made him much more likable. He’s still kind of a bumbling goof, but now he’s much less abrasive and has lost some of the smart-assedness that put me off the first go-‘round. The focus is also squarely on the Heffley family this time, so the gross-out gags and academic hijinks are kept to a minimum. The tone is kooky but subdued, and the characters don’t feel so much like cartoons come to life – they feel a little more grounded in reality and, therefore, possess a teensy bit more depth.
And maybe that’s why this latest big-screen installment of Jeff Kinney’s hugely popular illustrated books was much more palatable to me than the last one was.
