640. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid (2010)

Starring: Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron, Rachael Harris

Director: Thor Freudenthal

Running Time: 94 mins

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid is an American film about Greg, a boy who starts off his life in middle school, and finds that climbing to the top of the social ladder is a lot more complicated than he anticipated.

This film is so annoying. It’s not really ever very funny, the story is completely clichéd (it’s just a Mean Girls for 11 year old boys, if they’re interested in that sort of thing), the comedy and themes are too grown-up for the younger kids, while everything is too weak for anyone above 12, and the main character is hugely dislikeable.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the main character in this film is possibly one of the worst I’ve ever encountered. While the ultimate message of this film is that being popular and all that rubbish is not important, and it’s only important to be yourself, for the first part of the film when Greg doesn’t understand that, he is insufferable.

As well as then turning this film into a teeth-grindingly frustrating one, I hated Greg so much that I never wanted him to get anything right, and when it’s from the perspective of this boy, you can’t avoid hearing about how he wants to get everything right in his way, so it completely ruined the story for me.

Anyway, in terms of the comedy, it’s ridiculously weak. Even at the parts of the film which you might find funny, you’ll struggle to muster more than a chuckle, because the jokes are so clean and kid-friendly that it is pretty tedious.

Despite that, however, I’m not too sure whether any younger kids in the 4-9 year old age range would be able to enjoy this. Sure, they’d like a lot of the slapstick (and there is quite a lot of that), but in terms of the setting and the context of a middle school, I don’t think they would really get it too much.

Anyway, overall, this gets a 4.5, because it is a boringly weak and incredibly frustrating young boys’ Mean Girls.