'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' Review
PG: Rude material and some thematic elements
Runtime: 58 Minutes (I know, wtf)
Production Companies: Bardel Entertainment
Distributor: Disney
Directors: Swinton Scott
Writer: Jeff Kinney
Cast: Brady Noon, Ethan William Childress, Chris Diamantopoulos
Release Date: December 3, 2021
Disney+
Greg Heffley is a scrawny but ambitious kid with an active imagination and big plans to be rich and famous — he just has to survive middle school first. To make matters worse, Greg's lovable best friend Rowley seems to coast through life and succeed at everything without even trying! As details of his hilarious — and often disastrous — attempts to fit in fill the pages of his journal, Greg learns to appreciate true friends and the satisfaction that comes from standing up for what is right.
I know this iteration of Diary of a Wimpy Kid is animated, but actor Brady Noon makes for a darn good Greg Heffley. Noon, who has delivered some fantastic comedic performances with the R-rated comedy Good Boys and the Disney+ Mighty Ducks show, brings a spirited performance to Greg. Let’s be honest, Greg Heffley is a jerk who is devoid of charm, but Noon does his darndest to bring some life to him and he’s pretty good. We now got three Greg Heffley’s in film and for this being the first animated depiction of him, he perfectly fits the bill.
When it was announced last year during Disney’s Investors Day that Diary of a Wimpy Kid was getting its second reboot –– how do we have as many Wimpy Kid film reboots as we do of Spider-Man? –– but this time in animated form, I was intrigued. With the recent wave of stylized “2D book to 3D film” adaptations like The Peanuts Movie and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2021) could’ve been a perfect adaptation that continued a winning streak. From a conceptual standpoint, it had the potential to be the best Wimpy Kid movie to date. Instead, it sadly makes for a rebuttal to the argument that animation always triumphs over live-action.
Disney’s iteration of Wimpy Kid –– God, I love how they killed Fox just so they can take ownership of their old properties –– is a bare-bones, SparkNotes version of the source material that forgets to add personality or a fresh sense of wit to justify its existence. I don’t wanna come off as “an old, raggedy critic who just doesn't understand,” for I loved this series and grew up with it. Heck, several years ago I saw Jeff Kinney at BookCon and got a picture with him. While I haven’t picked up a Wimpy Kid book since I was 14, I retained enough memories to recognize how a majority of the material is completely omitted from this version. This movie follows the same beat-for-beat moments of the first book but straight-up cuts out a ton of the funniest sequences and key plot points that delve into the one-sided friendship between Greg and Rowley. The film leaves out major moments, such as Greg getting into the Wizard of Oz school play, Greg and Rowley joining the safety patrol, and Patty Ferrell kicking Greg’s ass. PATTY FERRELL IS NOT EVEN IN THIS MOVIE. There’s also very little screen time with the members of the Heffley family. Rodrick and Frank are present for like, one or two scenes and that’s about it!
Due to it playing like an abridged version of the source, it becomes transparent as to why the runtime barely takes up a full hour. The biggest heartbreak through all of this is how series creator Jeff Kinney wrote the screenplay. Though it’s great to see him take ownership of both the character designs and screenplay so it feels attuned to his voice, the cartoonist is nearly 20 books into the series so the story’s flow plays as if he tried to copy and paste his first book from memory. Either that or he was on a super tight deadline and had to make the screenplay as minimal as he could. Despite the cut content, this is just a beat-for-beat adaptation that fails to capture the funny sitcom energy of the original book or even the 2010 movie. How is the live-action movie a better homage to the original book than the animated movie the series creator wrote?
Without any newness presented to this version, it winds up feeling like a hollow adaptation, which isn’t saying anything considering how shallow of a lead character Greg Heffley is, to begin with. If there’s anything this iteration solidified with me, it’s that no matter how you spin it, Greg Heffley is a manipulative sociopath. Maybe I’m just older and this didn’t age well at all, but I recently watched the live-action movie during quarantine and thought, “Whoa, this is the PG version of American Psycho.” If Dear Evan Hansen was Joker for musical theater people, then Diary of a Wimpy Kid is Joker to middle school kids. This kid straight-up takes advantage of his best friend Rowley every opportunity he gets, never owns up to his actions, is egotistical, etc. The movie is not even funny, just mean-spirited.
The animation provided by Bardel Entertainment is a weird clash of quality. On one hand, the character features lack creative detail in motion and facial features to give Kinney’s design any sort of pop. The hair on the characters resembles play-doh, the black dotted eyes are bizarre-looking and lack expression, especially when they’re given to any dark-skinned characters. On the other hand, the textures of the attire, props, and environmental effects are given such a rich and oddly hyper-realistic look. Overall, the visual presentation comes off as half-assed, which is disappointing due to how other movies of this nature usually look. I know Bardel ain’t no Blue Sky Studios (The Peanuts Movie) or Mikros Animation (Captain Underpants), but there was potential to go beyond making some stylistic effort to make Kinney’s characters stand out in the animated world. Maybe they didn’t want to spend so much money on a direct to Disney+ product, but it’s still animation for Disney under their banner.
Inconsistent animation blended with a condensed version of the source material, this short and lifeless adaptation makes you second-guess if this series was good, to begin with. God, just watch the live-action movies. Yeah, even The Long Haul. Oh, I went there. God, I miss Devon Bostick.
