Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010)

**Diary of a Wimpy Kid** is a 2010 American live-action/animated comedy film directed by Thor Freudenthal and based on Jeff Kinney's book of the same name. The film stars Zachary Gordon and Devon Bostick. Robert Capron, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, and Chloë Grace Moretz. It is the first film 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), in addition to a CGI animated adaptation of the same name in 2021, and its sequel, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2022), set to release in 2022.

## Plot

Middle school is not an enjoyable experience for preteen Greg Heffley, but a horrid ordeal of social landmines that he must bear. To do so, he devises schemes to win him the recognition and status he feels he deserves all of which fail miserably. Greg chronicles his misadventures, thoughts, and opinions in a diary to prepare for the day that he will no longer have to put up with nonsense.

## Why It Isn't Wimpy At All

1. It stays extremely faithful to the book while making the characters seem more human than they are portrayed in Greg's journals in the books, with Frank Heffley being a huge example of this. While the makers of the movie did put some unnecessary product placement, the movie overall has a timeless feel, given how they don't focus on current trends or current culture, and it helps the movie hold up really well.
2. The plot structure, while noticeably different from the book, is a change that goes in the movie's favor, as the events in the movie serve to show Greg becoming less and less popular with every attempt to get noticed, and seeing Greg and Rowley having more and more tension until the climax of the movie, such as moving the play from before Rowley and Greg stopped being friends to afterwards in an attempt to make Rowley feel bad. Moreover, the scenes added in the movie, such as the teenagers nearly spotting Greg and Rowley, Greg mistaking a passing by truck as the teenagers from Hallowing, and the mother-son dance are good additions to the plot as they show how Greg's impulsive, manipulative, and selfish actions cause him to rethink of how he treated Rowley, and after seeing Rowley eat the Cheese, he decides to become a better friend by saying he ate it, and while his popularity tanks, Greg learns that you can still be a good person even if you are not popular. This is shown to be true in the next two movies, as Greg treats Rowley better and while he can still be a jerk, manipulative and narcissistic, this movie serves as a great start to Greg becoming a better person.
3. Zachary Gordon does a great performance as Greg Heffley. The same goes for Robert Capron as Rowley and Devon Bostick as Rodrick. The film crew and team put out an extra effort to make the actors look like their book counterparts, no matter how boring the hair-looks were for the characters. Additionally, they also wear clothes that the characters in the book would wear, and carefully thinking about every detail from the rooms to the personality.
	* Greg is the character who has a standard haircut, but has three springs on the top of his head and is not very muscly or tall, which makes for a very convincing Greg Heffley and a convincing middle schooler. He also is shown to dress in worn out clothes from Rodrick, something that is said in the books, adding to the convincing portrayal of Greg Heffley not only mentally, but also physically, too.
	* Rodrick has short, but relatively messy hair, and is noticeably taller and more bulky than Greg, and his hair and his physique also are close enough that Zach Gordon and Devon Bostick look like they are related. Rodrick's room, his stuff, and the clothes he wears are mainly rock and band clothes and magazines, something that translates very well from the books.
	* Manny is young, but is smarter than he looks, and greatly resembles what Manny was like in the original books, such as the play scene where he calls out "bubby", someone who is smart and is able to embarrass Greg constantly, and uses this to his advantage with Susan and Frank, and his clothes are new and shows he gets special treatment from their parents, adding to Owen and Connor Fielding's portrayal of Manny Heffley.
	* Rowley is getting older, but still has childlike tendencies, a kind-hearted person that doesn't care about what others think of him, just like in the books. Robert Capron does a good job of portraying Rowley and showing how being yourself is not a bad thing, such as the Mother and Son dance, his taste for comedy, and what he wears. Rowley's physique of being chubby is also present here, just like how he was portrayed in the books. Rowley's clothes in the movie are also on spot, with his clothes that are not worn by the other characters, such as his button down shirts and his room looks like the type Rowley would have with the younger tastes all across the room.
		+ The scenes where he calls out Greg, being with Colin, Rowley getting manipulated without knowing it, and becoming friends with Greg again are extremely well portrayed by Robert Capron, and help establish his relationship with Greg throughout the movie.
	* Frank and Susan are standard parents who have basic haircuts for parents, and wear the clothes portrayed by their book counterparts, and do a good job of showing how their parents may not do a good job parenting most of the time, but they are well-meaning and Susan does a good job of trying to help Greg at the Mother Son dance, and Frank does a good job of portraying him like in the book, especially with the weight lifting scene and Halloween scenes.
4. The cartoon aspect from the book series, which can be found during the opening scene, the credits, and various other scenes of the movie, is very well animated and crafted, and serves as very faithful to the original drawings made by Jeff Kinney.
5. The humor, instead of using the typical toilet humor usually seen in these types of films, opts for using character interactions instead for the main source of humor, and it works really well, such as the Patty Ferrell's interactions with Greg, Rodrick and Greg, Greg and Rowley, Rowley and Colin, and Greg and Fregley.
6. Plenty of funny and heartwarming moments, such as Greg's speech at the end, Rodrick's punishment for owning an offensive magazine, and the play scene. The funny moments and heartwarming moments and the serious scenes are also well implanted in the story, and they transition properly throughout the movie, resulting in a smooth storyline.
7. The soundtrack is extremely well done, and goes properly with the scenes throughout the movie, such as the big break-up, the speech scene, Rodrick telling the story of the Devil Worshipper Woods, and of course, the intro to the movie, and the speed isn't faster or slower than the song needs to be in a scene.
8. It delivers strong messages about friendship with good execution, and showing how to accept people for who they are and not how you want them to be.
9. The scene where Rodrick finally gets punished for owning an offensive magazine after all the trouble he did to Greg. While it may seem mean spirited on a surface level, it is very understandable, as Greg saw Rodrick give Susan the Mother Son dance invitation that Greg didn't want to go to.
	* The scene is ended in a funny way, with Rodrick saying "I'm sorry, women." and the other band members cheer for him.
10. Very great acting. Especially the scene where Rodrick tells Greg and Rowley the story about the Devil Worshipper Woods.
	* Devon Bostick was the absolute **perfect** choice for the role as Rodrick, as he amazingly captures the style and personality of the character from the books.
	* For example, the scene where Rodrick tricks Greg into waking up for "school" is very funny, and in the first act, the scenes where he threatens Greg, gives Greg advice, and again tricking Greg for "school" perfectly encapsulates what Rodrick is like from the books: a very cunning and manipulative, but very smart person who is able to lower expectations and knows how to get by in life, something expanded upon in Rodrick Rules.
11. "***Zoo Wee Mama!"***

## Bad Qualities

1. Greg is way too unlikable to sympathize with or root for. And while that's technically supposed to be the point to his character since he's an anti-role model that you're not supposed to be root for, the movie makes absolutely no attempt to make him charming or funny to watch like the book does, which ends up making Greg look like a poor choice for this film's main lead.
	* And not helping matters is the fact that the movie *does* give Greg sympathetic moments. And unfortunately, they all end up falling flat, namely when Rowley calls off his friendship with Greg after Greg frames him for stranding the kindergartners in the middle of a storm. That scene is presented as Greg making a mistake that he regrets, but he makes no attempt to come forward, even after his mom gave him advice about doing the right thing.
2. The scene at the end where Greg sacrifices his social dignity and is made an outcast by telling everyone he ate the cheese and not Rowley was handled very clunky. Since Greg is already at the bottom of the "Popularity List" and is already an outcast who has no friends, he doesn't really sacrifice anything and it still makes Rowley look like he's the only one who suffers from the situation, which makes it hard to believe that Greg actually experiences a loss from taking the fall for Rowley.
3. The film has unnecessary gross-out scenes here and there.
4. Product placement from mh:awesomegames:Nintendo, Blue Sky Studios (a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, the company that distributed this movie), Post cereal, Crest toothpaste, Snickers, and among others. To be fair, it isn't as widespread as other movies such as the Long Haul, but it is still something this film should have avoided doing with this movie.
5. Some mean-spirited moments like Rodrick threatening Greg and Rowley to chase them to "death" **just for going to his living room and touching his stuff**, and delinquent, Pete Hosey, threatening Rowley to eat the cheese as revenge for damaging his truck.
6. Patty Ferrell is an extremely unlikable character, as she's just a stereotypical mean popular girl who throws fits when she doesn't get her way.
7. The film's "Popularity List", while an intelligent gag in regards to popularity in high school, can be a bad message for young viewers, as it makes look that being popular is the most important thing in high school and that you should not associate with those who enjoy zero popularity to not ruin your reputation, which is exactly why Greg is mostly a jerk throughout the film, though the film at the end does show that Greg does get back with Rowley at the end and learns that popularity isn't everything.

## Reception

### Box office

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 Worms* and *Hoots* 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.

### Critical reception

Even though the film recieved mixed reviews from critics, it was well recieved by the audience and fans of the book series. 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 center of its middle-school humor – 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-."

## Trivia

* A fully CGI animated movie adaptation, which serves as the second adaptation of the first *Diary of a Wimpy Kid* book of the same name, was released on Disney+ in December of 2021, in addition to a sequel, Rodrick Rules, planned for a 2022 release.
* Lucas Cruikshank, better known for creating the *Fred* franchise as well as voicing the title character, was originally considered for the role of Greg Heffley, but he was too old for the role.
* Thor Freudenthal, director of this film, did not return for the next two films, as he was replaced by David Bowers.