Today we are looking at the 2021 Disney Plus original movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. My son grew up loving the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and the live-action movies, especially the first two! As is the case with most movies that star kids, the kids got too old for the roles and while they tried to reboot it with Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, it never quite worked and the series was put on hiatus.
How to Download Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2021 film)
You can stream it or you can download the film from Disney+. Click on the Download button at the end of this review. Check out also other Disney+ original films, for example, Turning Red or Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers.
The Movie Review
That was until Disney stepped in and decided to take the amazing work of Mr. Jeff Kinney and make a series of animated movies based on his work. Diary of a Wimpy kid is based on the first book and from what I understand, Jeff Kinney is planning on turning all of the books into animated movies, Rodrick Rules (my son’s favorite) is due out later in 2022.
The story is about a sixth-grader called Greg Heffley. Greg lives with his mom, dad, younger brother Manny, and older brother Rodrick. Greg is about to start middle school and he is setting his sights on becoming the most popular kid in the grade. His best friend is Rowley, Rowley is such a loveable character, but he is much happier in being just himself than Greg is.
Things do not exactly go to plan for Greg and Rowley actually becomes way more popular than him. Add to this all the other drama that comes with being in middle school and you have a lot of fun and crazy situations that Greg finds himself in. While Diary of a Wimpy kid is fun stuff, the movie has a bit of a problem.
The problem is that while this is a fun and well-told story, it is pretty much a retelling of the 2010 movie! To be fair they are both based on the same book, but anyone who has seen that 2010 movie is probably not going to be overly impressed with this one. This is not a bad movie at all, but it is doing nothing new and if I am being honest, I do feel that the live-action version is better.
I think that the animation style of the movie is great, they capture the doodle drawings of the book perfectly and the jump to 3D computer animation is done very well. The voice acting is also great, but those first three live-action movies nailed the casting so it is hard to look past the talented kids (and adults) that brought those first three (especially the first two) to life.
While my family was entertained while we were watching this, I have to say that we all felt a real sense of Deja Vue while watching this. I would think that for kids who have not seen the 2010s series of live-action movies, this is going to be way more fun. For those kids that did grow up watching the live-action mishaps of Greg Heffley, this may not wow them in the same way.
