Diary of a Wimpy Kid

PLOT (spoiler alert!!!):

11-year-old Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) is anxious to start middle school, confident he will easily become the school’s most popular kid. However, Greg worries about how his “childlike” best friend, Rowley Jefferson (Robert Capron), will fit in. While Rowley is a good friend who helps Greg escape his terrorizing older brother, Rodrick (Devon Bostick), Greg worries that Rowley’s “dorky” clothes and personality will embarrass both of them.

On their first day, Greg and Rowley meet Angie Steadman (Chloë Moretz), a seventh grader who works for the school’s paper. Throughout the school year, Angie gives Greg and Rowley information about the workings of middle school, which she believes was created to store kids while they make the awkward transition between children to teenagers. Classmate Chirag Gupta (Karan Brar) tells Greg and Rowley the story behind the moldy slice of Swiss cheese laying on the school’s basketball court; upon touching the cheese, a kid named Darren Walsh (Harrison Houde) contracted the Cheese Touch; anyone who touches the cheese will create chaos as they pass on the Cheese Touch by touching someone else. The Cheese Touch eventually got taken away by a German exchange student named Dieter Müller, who moved back to Düsseldorf and took the Cheese Touch with him.

Greg is determined to be voted a “class favorite” and listed in the yearbook, but each of his attempts to do so backfire. His popularity quickly drops as he loses to Patty Farrell (Laine MacNeil), Greg’s archenemy, and Fregley (Grayson Russell), the weirdest and 201st most popular (past the bottom) kid in school, in scholastic wrestling (taught by Coach Malone, portrayed by Andrew McNee); Greg angers teenagers on Halloween night by threatening to call the cops on them after they spray him and Rowley with a fire extinguisher, and then damages their eight-generation Ford F150 pickup truck with a weed whacker; Greg joins the geeky Safety Patrol with Rowley; and breaks Rowley’s left hand during winter vacation during a game Greg invented with his Big Wheel. At school, everyone notices Rowley’s broken hand and Rowley becomes very popular, much to Greg’s dismay. Rowley’s popularity increases when he beats Greg to become the school paper’s cartoonist, despite Greg’s dismissal of his ideas.Greg found a cheese ball pizza.

Greg and Rowley’s friendship falls apart after Greg allows Rowley to take the blame for a mistake Greg made during Safety Patrol. After Greg tells Rowley the truth and tries to tell it as a joke, Rowley berates him for being a bad friend who cares about nothing but himself. When Mr. Winsky, the Safety Patrol teacher, heard what had actually happened, he told Greg that he was now relieved of his Safety Patrol duties “effective immediately”, and promotes Rowley to a captain. Rowley then leaves Greg and befriends a kid named Collin Lee (Alex Ferris). Greg tries to move on by having a sleep over with Fregley, but Fregley’s sugar-induced hyperactivity is too much for him to take. He then tries to pursue popularity without Rowley by auditioning for the school play of The Wizard of Oz, but ruins the performance by starting an apple-throwing fight with Patty when she throws a temper tantrum in the middle of the performance.

At the school mother-son dance, Greg’s mother (Rachael Harris) suggests Greg ask Rowley to go out for ice cream with them. However, Collin tells Greg that he and Rowley already have plans. Later, Greg is excited when Rowley comes up to him in school, but is disappointed when he learns Rowley only wants a game back. Greg refuses to return the game, causing them to get into an argument. Kids gather around them, wanting them to fight, but are quickly dispelled when the teenagers that Greg and Rowley had angered on Halloween drive up, looking for revenge. The kids find the Cheese and make Rowley eat it. They are about to force Greg to eat the cheese when Coach Malone arrives, leading the kids to run away.

The children return and find the partially eaten cheese. Patty begins to accuse Rowley, but Greg steps in and takes the blame. He picks up the cheese and makes a profound speech about the ridiculousness of the cheese and other middle school institutions, but Patty ruins it when she shouts out that Greg has the Cheese Touch, causing everyone to run away from Greg. Greg and Rowley make up, and Angie approaches them to compliment Greg for his bravery. Greg and Rowley make it into the class favorites list as “cutest friends”. The film ends with Greg, Rowley, and Angie laughing after Patty hugged Rowley and contracted the Cheese Touch, and Greg narrating that he still has the summer and next year ahead of him.

REVIEW:

When this film was first released, I thought it was just one of those films meant to bring in the preteen boys. It really didn’t look all that interesting to me, bt I did promise to check it out on DVD, which is what I’ve done tonight.

I still am glad that I didn’t waste the money to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid in theaters, but this was surprisingly better than I expected it to be.

The plot of this film is centered around Greg Heffley and his first year in middle school and the things he tries to do to be remembered and not a “geek” or “baby”.

Seriously, that’s all there is to the plot, except for some friction between him and his brother and the conventional battle between best friends.

This film is based on a book series of the same name, so I don’t know how much was changed, except that they added the character of Angie Steadman. Don’t ask me why they felt the need to add her in there, but they did.

While this picture exceeded my expectations, I have to say that the major character, Greg Heffley has to be one of the most unlikable stars of a film I’ve ever come across. If not for the girl bully and his big brother, dare I say he wold be the most hated person in the picture, and that is not a good sign when you’re the “wimpy kid” in a film called Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I wonder if he is this unlikable in the book, or worse, because he was such a pox on the existence of mankind in this film, I almost couldn’t watch.

On the flipside, his best friend is the typical lovable chubby sidekick, bt I think that is why his character works so well. While the audience can’t get invested in Greg, they can fall in love and feel sorry for Rowley, especially after watching the abuse he constantly gets from Greg.

There are some special effects in this flick, but they resemble the cheap kind that you would see on SyFy channel. Having said that, they really aren’t supposed to be anything earth shattering, so I can let that slide.

The little cartoons that are shown throughout the film are really the highlight of this picture as they really allow the viewer to visualise what Greg is going through, but through his eyes. It really was brilliant for the filmmaker to add those in there.

So, what is the final verdict of Diary of a Wimpy Kid? Well, it has its moments here and there. It definitely is a good family film, but if you’re above the age of 14 or 15 and you’re watching this, you may not enjoy it as much as you would think. I honestly think you’d be better served digging up some old episodes of Recess. However, as I said before, this isn’t as bad as I expected. Does that mean you should rush out and see this? Not by any stretch of the imagination, but if you’re looking for a good family flick, this should get some consideration. As far as just a generic film to watch, the unlikable, unrelatable main character kills everything that this film had going for it, and ruins its rating.

3 out of 5 stars

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