Psycho's Movie Reviews #408: Diary Of A Wimpy Kid (2010)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a 2010 American comedy film directed by Thor Freudenthal and based on Jeff Kinney's 2007 book of the same name. The film stars Zachary Gordon and Robert Capron. Devon Bostick, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, and Chloë Grace Moretz also have prominent roles. It is the first instalment in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid film series, and was followed by three sequels, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2011), Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (2012), and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (2017).

The film was theatrically released on March 19, 2010, in the United States by 20th Century Fox. The film received mixed reviews from critics and earned $75.7 million on a $15 million budget.

Plot

Twelve-year-old Greg Heffley is apprehensive about beginning middle school. A week before starting school, his older brother Rodrick plays a prank on him at 4:00 in the morning, making him think that he’s late for school and their family wake up and scold Greg for making all the noise and Rodrick gets off scot-free. On the actual first day, he quickly discovers the ups and downs, such as the missing stall doors in the boys' bathroom and the difficulties of obtaining a seat during lunch. During P.E. class, Greg and his best friend, Rowley Jefferson, escape from a game of Gladiator and learn from their friend, Chirag Gupta, about a moldy piece of cheese on the basketball court that makes anyone who touches it an outcast and that the only way to get rid of what is known as “the Cheese Touch” is to pass it on to someone else. They also meet Angie Steadman, a seventh-grader who isolates herself from the other students to "survive". Greg states his intention of becoming the most popular student in school.

The next day, Greg signs up for wrestling but suffers back-to-back humiliating losses against Fregley, an eccentric outcast, and his elementary school arch-enemy, Patty Farrell, causing him to decide to quit wrestling. On Halloween, while Greg and Rowley are out trick-or-treating, a group of teenage boys, Pete Hosey, Carter and Wade, drive by in a pickup truck and spray a fire extinguisher at them. When Greg threatens to call the police, the boys chase him and Rowley to Greg’s grandmother's house, but the latter two escape them after Greg accidentally damages the truck.

The boys join the Safety Patrol, and they try out for a contest that offers a student a chance to become the new cartoonist for the school paper as a replacement for Brian Little, who recently got glandular fever, causing him to be out for 3 months. Greg accidentally breaks Rowley's arm, prompting other students to take pity on Rowley, thus making him popular. Greg's envy towards him only increases when Rowley wins the cartoonist contest. During a Safety Patrol assignment, Greg walks kindergartners down a neighbourhood street without Rowley, but panics when he encounters a truck identical to the teenagers' from Halloween and hides the kids in a construction zone. After being spotted by a neighbour, Mrs. Irvine, who mistakes him for Rowley, he abandons the kindergarteners and flees. To his bewilderment, Rowley is suspended from Safety Patrol, but Greg eventually confesses the truth to him, offering it as a joke. Distraught at Greg's consistent mistreatment of him, Rowley ends their friendship. Greg is eventually dismissed from Safety Patrol while Rowley is reinstated as team captain and finds a new best friend in their classmate, Collin Lee.

Greg decides to pursue popularity without Rowley by joining the school's production of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. At the audition, Greg is offered the role of Dorothy due to his soprano voice. He attempts to decline the role, but Patty threatens the teacher, Mrs. Norton, into casting her instead. Greg agrees to play as a tree after learning from Chirag that the trees get to throw apples at Dorothy, but this scene is cut from the play and replaced with a musical number, much to his dismay. During the performance, Greg refuses to sing when he notices Rodrick mockingly videotaping him. This prompts Patty to angrily berate him onstage, and Greg begins throwing apples at her, causing the performance to end in chaos, and Greg gets beaten up by Patty again. Later on, Greg reluctantly attends the school’s mother-son dance, where he, at the encouragement of his mother Susan, tries to reconcile with Rowley, but is rejected. He can only dejectedly watch as Rowley and his mother win the crowd over with a dance routine.

One day at recess, Greg and Rowley loudly confront each other and a circle of students encourage them to fight; however, neither of them are good at fighting. The teenage boys from Halloween arrive at the scene and force Rowley to eat part of the cheese after the other kids, except for Greg, are chased inside the school. They flee the scene when the school's gym teacher, Coach Malone, arrives, but when the other kids come back out and notice that the cheese has been eaten, Greg takes the blame to save Rowley's reputation, mending their friendship.

At the end of the school year, Greg and Rowley make the yearbook Class Favourites page as "Cutest Friends”.

Production

The filming of Diary of a Wimpy Kid was in Vancouver and wrapped up on October 16, 2009.

The official trailer for Diary of a Wimpy Kid was released virally on January 21, 2010 and was shown in theaters with Tooth Fairy. A poster for the film was released shortly after. Another trailer was shown with Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

The official Facebook account for Diary of a Wimpy Kid had uploaded three clips from the film, as of March 1, 2010. In the United Kingdom and Ireland the film was released in cinemas on August 25, 2010.

The soundtrack was released on CD by La La Land Records with the score composed by Theodore Shapiro, containing 34 tracks.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 3, 2010. The Blu-ray version features six pages from Rowley's diary, Diary of an Awesome, Friendly Kid. The film was released on the streaming service Disney+ on November 12, 2019; its launch date.

Review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 54%, based on 106 reviews with an average rating of 5.51/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Unlike its bestselling source material, Diary of a Wimpy Kid fails to place a likable protagonist at the centre of its middle-school humour – and its underlying message is drowned out as a result." It also holds a rating of 56/100 at Metacritic, based on 26 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audience surveyed by CinemaScore gave this film an "A-."

Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, writing "It's nimble, bright and funny. It doesn't dumb down. It doesn't patronize. It knows something about human nature." Glenn Whipp of the Associated Press was less positive, saying, "In transferring the clean, precise humour of Kinney's illustrations and prose to the big-screen, the material loses just a bit of its charm." At the Movies host David Stratton gave the film one star while co-host Margaret Pomeranz gave it half a star. Stratton called the film "tiresome" and said there was "nothing remotely interesting in Thor Freudenthal's direction or the screenplay." Pomeranz disliked the character of Greg Heffley, saying "I really thought he was unpleasant. I did not want to spend time with him. I could not wait for the end of this film."

OregonLive.com gave the movie a C+ grade, criticizing it for being "too often dull, unappealing and clumsy, hobbled by unnecessary changes and inventions that add no charm, energy or, truly, point."

Despite a lack of distinctive marketing, Diary of a Wimpy Kid drew a decent crowd, opening to $22.1 million on approximately 3,400 screens at 3,077 sites, in second place at the weekend box office behind Alice in Wonderland but beating out the heavily hyped The Bounty Hunter. It was the biggest start ever for a non-animated, non-fantasy children's book adaptation. Diary of a Wimpy Kid grossed more in its first three days than other film adaptions to children's novels like How to Eat Fried Worms and Hoot grossed in their entire runs. The film grossed $64,003,625 in North America and $11,696,873 in other territories for a worldwide total of $75,700,498.

Budget $15 million

Box office $75.7 million

My Review

I haven't read the book by Jeff Kinney which this film is based upon, but one thought struck my mind, and that is Ferris Bueller just got younger! For all his wisecracks, smart alecky ideas and attitude, Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) just reminds me of the time when Matthew Broderick took on the Bueller role, though this time round it's got less to do with cars and girls, but everything to do about surviving middle school, just about the time before puberty kicks in for him.

No thanks to the 101 tactical lessons on middle school survival by his brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick), Greg decides that his goal and calling during his time will be to be Mr Popular, though he increasingly finds that task being close to impossible given the number of his schemes backfiring most of the time, and when his best friend Rowley (Robert Capron) continues to be the source of embarrassment to his perceived supercool demeanour. He tries to rewrite the school's playground rules, only to find that he isn't quite the trend setter or the visionary he thinks he is, while his plus sized friend somehow manages to climb up the popularity rankings.

It's about that time in our lives where we think we're able to change the world from a very young age, where we think we're infallible, and that whatever we do, we can reset the established norm. It's about how negative emotions such as jealousy and envy get the better of us sometimes, and we react in the nastiest of ways due to pride. Then there's the message of being true to oneself rather than the actor being someone else. Relatively heavy themes for what's essentially a kids' film, but that's how director Thor Freudenthal managed to include in the tale of the wimpy kid's first year in middle school without you feeling overwhelmed but them.

What works here wonderfully is the casting, which is probably just about the highlight of the film itself. Zachary Gordon owns the role as Greg and has this schmuck look on him that doesn't irritate, but will buy you into his exploits, and most times laugh along or at him depending on whether his antics will rub you the right way or not. And nearly stealing the limelight away from Greg, is his best friend Rowley, played to wingman perfection by Robert Capron, who like his character is always on the verge of upstaging Zachary Gordon and stealing his thunder. The two are believable as best friends forever in Harry Potter-Ron Weasley proportions, and it is their play against each other, one using the other to further his cause, the other just happy to have someone whom he can try to emulate, being the strong points in the narrative. Their acting's natural, and have incredible chemistry so much so that you wonder if everything will go downhill when they split.

The humour in the film is manifold, from pure wit right down to the occasional toilet humour with farts, pee and all, from the home to outside of home, and the usual challenges faced when in battle zones such as the canteen, the gym, and festivals like Halloween and even Mother-Child Night?! The basic animation featured in the film also boosted its narrative through its simple, iconic drawings, and provides very much on how Greg sees himself, and that of his friends and family, which no doubt had tinges of familiarity and being stereotypes, such as the nasty big sized girl whose influential family means she can act like a bitch, or that nerd outcast that everyone tries to avoid. Plot elements such as the rotting piece of cheese stuck on the school grounds also provide for plenty of inane moments, and Cheese Touch is something that I'll never forget.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is loads of fun, being reminiscent of the time when growing up was quite the pain and more often than not a time of being misunderstood. Highly recommended! 8.1/10

{I will say that the end credits song is a banger}