Every Diary of a Wimpy Kid Drawing
Diary of a Wimpy Kid gets a fresh new look courtesy of Disney+, and please note how I'm trying really hard not to use the words "franchise" and "reboot" in this sentence, and failing. Now that 20th Century Fox is under the rule of Mickey Mouse's iron fist, the audio-visual adaptations — four live-action movies released between 2010 and 2017 — of writer-cartoonist Jeff Kinney's 100-million-selling book series are ripe to be rejiggered. OK, they're not exactly "ripe," but four years of a dormant, unexploited IP is the type of thing that gives Disney the shivers. So this time, the stories of a beleaguered middle-schooler come to life as a cartoon that transmogrifies Kinney's simple pencil drawings into colorful CG animation, which could be fun, as long as you don't mind that it's the same story you've seen and read before.
DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: At first, Greg Heffley (voice of Brady Noon), a soon-to-be middle-schooler with an annoying family and a goofball best pal and a whole heap of anxiety about fitting in and being cool, is a line drawing running around on notebook paper. And then he's full-color, 3-D as all heck, a symbolic-metaphorical visual rendering of his transition from early childhood to preadolescence, if you want to get all analytical about it, and why would you? Anyway, as the metaphor implies, Greg is smack in the middle of a transitional identity crisis. He's a mild defier of parental rules who wishes his neckless compadre Rowley (Ethan William Childress) was less of a dweeb and sees middle school as a place populated by bullies and freaks and peer-pressureniks. It's a bunch of animals out there. ANIMALS.
And the way he handles it all — well, he's quite consistently kind of a jerk about it. He often does the wrong thing, ignores his mother's wishes and treats people like crap. Rowley is a sweet chap, a bit naive, and Greg exploits his gullibility and criticizes him for still acting like a little kid. Greg's jerkishness gets Rowley's arm broken, and all Greg can do is think about how he can leverage Rowley's injury to make them more popular at school. There's a whole thing where Greg draws a comic strip for the school paper and it gets edited into a PSA for the library, and then Rowley borrows one of Greg's ideas for a funny cartoon and becomes the king of the cafeteria, and we all pretty much think Greg totally deserves to lose this one, don't we? Are we getting to the point where we start siding with all of Greg's perceived enemies, where we're happy that he's living a deeply annoying existence? Yeah, more or less. Whatever happened to sympathetic protagonists, man?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is as good a place as any to say this animated take on Wimpy Kid is a mild upgrade of its live-action predecessors, which might hold up OK for those of a certain demographic, but are borderline-lousy and offer diminishing returns for the rest of us.
Performance Worth Watching: I dunno — I'm Team Rowley, so let's give it up for Childress, who lends a funny-charming voice to the slightly dopey kid in the primary supporting role.
Memorable Dialogue: Greg reveals his true inner fatalist when he utters the immortal line: "Telling the truth would just make things worse for everybody."
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: So, OK, maybe Greg is something of an anti-hero, and the whole point of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid IP is to lightly subvert schmaltzy conventions of typical feelgood let's-all-get-along happy-happy-joy-joy hug-'em-all-let-god-sort-'em-out kid fare. It's hard not to notice that Rowley manages the travails of middle school by simply being himself, while Greg the tryhard overthinks himself into being ostracized. The movie features a handful of (cough) Teachable Moments, although it doesn't spoonfeed syrupy lessons by getting all preachy. Which means adults may be prompted to talk to their children about Greg's poor decisions and engage in (gasp) active parenting.
Please don't groan. Maybe that's the point, the positive spin on this franchise. Blatantly obvious morality plays clog up the content menus of all your favorite streaming services, just waiting for you to blankly consume them and go about your day. Wimpy Kid is sort of an antidote to that, although it still features some of the usual stuff, e.g., booger-based comedy and silly stereotypes of dorkwads and bullies. I wrestle with how Greg precipitously walks the line between being a relatable youngster in full middle-school survival mode, and being a judgy, selfish poophead. He makes a lot of mistakes and maybe almost learns his lessons, although one can't help but think he could be a better human being as he muddles his way through life just like the rest of us. Maybe Greg is the pre-tween Homer Simpson, a beloved comedy figure who we adults are happy not to be, even though we sometimes sheepishly resemble him; maybe people of all ages deserve an anti-role model.
Our Call: STREAM IT. This Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a perfectly fine, lively, reasonably funny, episodic, hour-long franchise update that should please its target audience (but keep your expectations modest).
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.
StreamDiary of a Wimpy Kid (2021)on Disney+
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2021)
- Disney+
- Family Movies
- Stream It Or Skip It
Tags
Every Diary of a Wimpy Kid Drawing
Source: https://decider.com/2021/12/03/diary-of-a-wimpy-kid-disney-plus-review/
0 Response to "Every Diary of a Wimpy Kid Drawing"
Post a Comment