All Critics (103)
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Top Critics (23)
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Fresh (55)
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Rotten (48)
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DVD (7)
The young cast is all game, and sidekicks Robert Capron and Grayson Russell are a real hoot. Slumber party viewings are inevitable.
Too soon though -- maybe 30 minutes in -- audience laughs turn to chuckles, fading to worn smiles.
Looks drab and drained of color, and can't even muster the antic buoyancy of an average episode of iCarly.
The problem with Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the wimpy kid is a jerk.
What sets this kid comedy apart is how well it resists the temptation to clobber the bullies and crown the underdog.
What the movie gets right, sometimes in agonizing detail, are the humiliations and horrors of school...
If you're a parent who's been forced to sit through a barren desert of painfully unfunny family comedies, Diary will feel like an oasis.
Zachary Gordon, as the wimpy kid of the title, seems to be aiming for a Ferris Buehler-esque omniscience and superiority and, while he doesn't quite pull it off all the way, I was down for his struggle.
A fairly forgettable and polarizing comedy that's strictly targeted to the preteen boys of the audience, all of whom are convinced this is how middle is and will be like...
The characters (through no fault of the young performers) have all the personality of hand puppets.
Conveys, in a good-humoured, sharply observed way, the small, painful cruelties and unpredictable rules of early adolescence, and it celebrates awkwardness without feeling the need to convert it into cheap triumph.
The film retains much of the original humour, some of it well executed. It's reasonably faithful to the spirit of the books, probably because Kinney is the executive producer, but it's by no means equal to his originals.
Perceptive, funny, unusually edgy voyage into the comic travails of schoolyard politics and childhood friendship.
Performances from the young cast are arguably a little too slick and knowing for the naive characters they are playing, but that is often par for the course in American films these days.
In an early self-referential monologue, Greg says, "Who wants to see a movie about a kid who's stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons?" Who indeed?
All right all you 8 - 12 year olds, get in line for some fun at Greg Heffley's expense.
While the blackness of many situations resonates and despite some amusing moments, the film's tone is so ardent and realistic, it often works against it. Nonetheless, this coming of age film for the under 12 set has merit and charm
[A] sappy and superficial adaptation...
The film's wry wit and understanding of childhood anxieties will remind older viewers of the television series The Wonder Years which is no small compliment.
Though the film sags a little in places, it imparts its be-true-to-yourself life lessons with sweetness and charm...
As my son says, 'The books were a lot better.'
One for the kids, if they're really misbehaving.
This movie relishes in the awkwardness of starting life in the bottom year of a new school.
Bright, pacy and often funny (despite an over-reliance on poop jokes), Diary Of A Wimpy Kid never patronises children and should be a hit with pre-teen boys.
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