Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Even I have to laugh at the #notmyrodrick uproar. It's the silver lining in all of this. "The Long Haul" is atrocious, a dumbed-down sequel that tosses out the series' charms for the cheap gags. It's got DTV written all over it, which does not do the book justice. And it was a great book!

It was about six months ago that we saw the trailer for this in the theater. Tom Everett Scott and Alicia Silverstone start jamming to The Spice Girls' "Wannabe", and a kid in the back of the theater asks, "Mommy, what are they saying?".

That moment was funnier than anything in the movie.

3/10

Greg Heffley (Jason Drucker) is looking forward to a long summer of just hanging out, but his mother forces the entire family to take a road trip for a relative's birthday celebration.

Wimpy Kid veteran David Bowers directs a briskly paced family comedy in the vein of National Lampoon's (only a version for a younger audience). The cast include the familiar faces of actors Alicia Silverstone and Tom Everett Scott who are accompanied by some fresh faced new comers who play Wimpy Kid favourites Greg, Rodrick and Rowley. The players are forgivably not as settled into their roles quite yet but nonetheless are entertaining. Some editing aside Bowers offers a well made good looking film. Long Haul is a road trip where almost every outlandish gag is borrowed from another comedy but it's put together well enough to get pleasure from. It also amusingly touches on the over reliance of technology within a family.

If your child is a fan of the Wimpy Kid series, they'll no doubt enjoy this one, it's entertaining and lowbrow enough to also appease the moodiest of teens and grumpiest adults.

I had high hopes for this film, until I saw it. This movie could have been like the previous films that where okay and kinda good, but at everything they did right in the previous films they did wrong with this one. The problem is the movie feels rushed and trying to move to the next joke, the jokes are unfunny and childish. Not only are the jokes childish but the acting is the worst I have ever seen. Not only that but the characters are complete idiots and feel unreal, in past films they felt real and relatable. Unlike this one the movie tries to relate to the audience with references of "Mad Max" and Markiplier but fail to do so. Overall it was a big disappointment, I give it a 4/10.

Where's the handsome middle brother & the sexy older brother who plays the drums? Where's Steve Zahn who plays the Father? They make another Wimpy Kid but don't have any of the original players? That's just too harsh. Too different. Too hard to adjust to. I couldn't watch the whole thing.

This film is unwatchable. I suffered through the 91 minutes, which somehow felt longer than the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring. The new cast was horrific, the script was aimed at toddlers and the acting was the worst that I have seen in recent memory. While I do not think that the original films are phenomenal, I spent the majority of the film wishing that I was watching one of them. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul lacked charm and felt like when you accidentally buy Great Value chips instead of Lays.