A promise is a promise, or so my kids said, even if I really didn’t want to take them to see “Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules” the week it opened in theaters. My kids have been reading the Wimpy Kid graphic novels for some time, so I was familiar with the aesthetic, but hadn’t really jumped into the phenomenon myself. However, they had earned a night at the theater, so off we went.
I usually love taking my kids to the theater, and despite a few intolerable duds over the years (“Alvin & the Chipmunks, the Squeakquel” and “Barnyard” come to mind, since both are children’s movies I found offensive, repulsive and poorly animated.), I nearly always enjoy the experience. Heck, I even spring for three dimensional showings sometimes; last summer, “Despicable Me”, “Toy Story 3” and “MegaMind” were all lots of fun with those 3D glasses on.
But for some reason, I was dreading “Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2”. Maybe because I hadn’t seen the first movie. Maybe because I thought I knew the premise of the book series (losers losing at life, right?) and didn’t anticipate more than a ‘meh’ in response. Maybe because I would have rather been seeing “The King’s Speech” that night. Who knows? I just remember that the walk from the parking lot to the ticket booth was extra long. I even seriously considered bringing my iPod into the theater, just in case.
However, if I told you that after watching DWK2, I then bought a copy of the first “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” movie on DVD, plus the Rodrick Rules book, which had been missing from our collection, plus the new Do-It-Yourself Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, in hardback, no less!, plus the set of plastic Wimpy Kid figurines for my son’s birthday, would I be able to convey just how much I ended up loving the film and the series?
I mean, I really, really dug this sequel, even without seeing the prequel. I had a unqualified good time. I didn’t slip out of the theater even once to buy Milk Duds or peruse ‘coming attractions’ posters. I even made the kids stick around through the entire closing credits sequence. We were the last ones in the theater I liked it so much!
Just why did I end up having such a good time when I held such low expectations going in?
In a word – tone. Tone is the attitude of the filmmaker or actors toward the subject matter, the audience, other characters, the story, and so forth. And I guess I was expecting a snarky kind of tone. I was expecting lots of meanspiritedness, prank pulling, unkind words and so forth.
The interesting thing is that the film is actually full of the things on that list (but …). Rodrick is mean to Greg, he disobeys his parents, other kids tease Greg and Rowley. The beautiful Holly mistakes Greg for Fregley, the pariah of this junior high school group, thereby shaming Greg deeply. There were plenty of what we call ‘bathroom’ jokes, plus lots of falling, tripping and bad driving. The boys eat pizza out of a trash can. Greg runs around an assisted living center in his underpants.
But the tone of the movie – its underlying attitude – was sweet and even affectionate, at least by my tastes. It was, dare I say it?, wholesome.
The brothers fight plenty, yes, but end up growing closer.
The kids are disobedient, for sure, but receive consequences.
The parents are goofy, but not ridiculous – just sweetly clueless and appropriately firm.
The Heffley family does stuff together. They attend school functions and talent shows together. They visit ol’ Grandpa. Even when Rodrick receives a devastating punishment (I won’t spoil it for the rest of the parents reading this), he still goes on the planned family outing. He’s frowning, but he’s there (and he’s wearing pretty cool emo eyeliner).
I also thought the movie was age appropriate in a way that the “Shrek” creators never quite managed. Two examples:
Early on in the movie, during a sleepover about to go awry, Rowley and Greg are watching “The Foot”, a bootleg horror flick they nab from Rodrick’s room. This (faux) fim within a film is meant to scare the boys to bits, enough so that Rowley calls his dad in the middle of the night for a ride home. And “The Foot” does scare the boys. It scared my kids. But it was scary in a safe way. It was scary in a funny way too. The filmmakers could have easily put in a genuinely scary or violent scene, but instead, we see an obviously rubber foot hopping down a dimly lit hall. It was enough, but not too much.
Later in the movie, Rodrick throws a wild teenage party because his parents aren’t home. He tries to lock Greg in the basement, but hijinks ensue and Greg manages to attend the party. Again, the filmmakers could have made the party scene subversive, edgy or adult-appropriate. Instead, we see surly teenagers grinding pretzels into the carpet, chugging two liters of soda pop and posing under cheerful Christmas lights. I appreciated that the party scene didn’t show any drinking, vomiting or malicious behavior. There will be plenty of years for the watching of “Risky Business” et al. For now, I want my elementary school-aged kids to watch elementary school-aged movies.
I was also impressed with the way “Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2” incorporated its graphic source material into the live action movie – the visual touches are clever and instructive for kid viewers who have read every book in the series multiple times. And as a huge fan of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”, I really dig it when moviemakers can seamlessly integrate text features into film. The DWK2 team did just that.
So two stick-figure thumbs up?
Let me put it this way: this weekend, my kids are away visiting grandparents, but tonight, I’m going to make a big bowl of buttery popcorn and watch the first “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by myself.
Has a “kid” movie ever surprised you this way?
What are some of your kids’ favorites movies that you’ve also enjoyed?
We didn’t see the second one, but loved the first one. I’d watch it a second time, and I rarely say that about a kid movie anymore. The greatest part about it, for me, was watching Stuart love it. He’s so used to tagging along to movie adaptations of books that his sisters have read. And he always feels left out when they know what’s coming next.
So this was his moment to shine. He kept saying, “This next part is SO funny” and “Wait until you see what happens next.” And he laughed, oh, he laughed. We all did. I loved watching him enjoy the movie.
We’ll have to watch the second one.
Thank you for the review. Ulysses saw and loved the first movie just a few weeks ago at a friends, but we haven’t read the books or seen the movies yet. I will definitely give them a view. I think the tone you are describing — which I’ve found in Up, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, The Sandlot — is so important. I don’t care for the slick cynicism that has crept into so many cartoons and children’s shows.
I love your word for it, Heidi – “slick cynicism”. Exactly! Pixar does cynicism-free movies SO well. I love “The Sandlot” as well!
We got a free DVD from some cereal deal a while ago, and I picked from a list ‘Bridge to Terabithia’ which I knew nothing about. It was a great kids film, and actually when we had (adult) friends over a little while ago, who didn’t want to watch anything rated above a 12, and maybe not even a 12 this was the film we chose to watch together – and it was a great hit. I love it when you can enjoy watching a film with your children.
Matilda is one I enjoy to watch with my girls, and I’m looking forward to getting Tangled.
Thanks for the recommendations, Helen. I loved reading Bridge to Terabithia when I was a child. I didn’t realize it had been made into a movie. Was it a tearjerker?
So glad you mentioned “Matilda” too. Wonderful fun movie – it has all the silly stuff kids love + some age-appropriate menace + a great kid-empowered ending.
I haven’t seen “Tangled’ yet either, but I am looking forward to it!
Bridge to Terabithia definitely a tearjerker.. although I had no clue of the story when I watched it, and really wasn’t expecting it to be. ~I have since bought the book, but still haven’t got round to reading it yet…
Super tearjerker. I don’t think I would show it to my 5 year old, but good for 8-13 year olds.
Somehow my middle child skipped the “I love to read” gene. Up until 4th grade he survived our library trips by only reading non-fiction. So we know everything about sharks, wolves, volcanoes and dinosaurs by the beginning of 4th grade, but he still hadn’t caught the fiction bug.
Enter the Wimpy Kid Series. We started reading the books together and something about the combo of relate-able, realistic story line combined with those darn stick figure images really stuck with him and he was hooked, off reading by himself. We pre-ordered the second book ahead of time.
We also have a rule at our house – if you read the book, you get to see the movie. I managed to skip most of the Hairy Potter movies (ugh), and anything sci-fi, as the hubby is happy to take the kids. I did end up going to see the Wimpy Kid movies with the little ones and felt the same way. Very. Well. Done.
I owe the series a lot – I now have a kid who loves to read…
Laurie, I had a similar experience with my middle child…. a good reader, but a lot of non-fiction and not reading novels for pleasure which I found concerning. Along came a 4th grade teacher who read them the Seekers series (by Erin Hunter, which is actually pseudonym for a group of authors) and then she got into the other series the Warriors. She is now a big reader of fiction- yay!
We haven’t seen the second one yet, but the first movie is classic at our house. Even Ethan, at age two (who was in speech therapy until recently and barely spoke a word) walked around saying, “YOU CHEESE TOUCH!” perfectly clear.
The books have been read and re-read by Brennan, who is often heard reading his favorite parts aloud to Jackson (age 5). It’s also one of the few books we can easily get him to read out loud at all.
While there are many things that I don’t love about the series, I love it so much more then Captain Underpants (Bren’s last obsession, via the school library) that they can stay around.
So, I am glad to hear you liked it…wonder what my chances are of it coming as a free weekday movie this summer to the theaters??? :)
Jessica, what are some of the things you don’t like about the series? Sounds like Brennan has liked them even more than Stuart–and I’m not as familiar with them as I am with some other books because Stuart has pretty much read them independently.
Major ugh on Captain Underpants. We read one of those aloud about a year ago and it was torturous to me. I didn’t like it at all. At one point, Stuart said, “Do we have to finish this?” I said “yes” because I thought we should stick with it–see if it got better–but we were both glad when it was over and we didn’t get any more of them.
Hey, get your hands off my Captain Underpants! Dav Pilkey has kids reading everywhere who wouldn’t normally be reading…
Now. If we could only get him to spell correctly in his books, I’d have no complaints!
My son sounds a lot like your reluctant reader, Laurie! Captain Underpants is a favorite for him too & anything I can do to enforce the message that words on a page = hours of entertainment is good. :)
Ha! Very funny, Laurie. I just didn’t care for the books.
I know a lot of people felt similarly about Junie B. Jones when she was all the rage. But I loved Junie B. and felt like there was a sweetness/innocence there that was absent with Captain Underpants. I just didn’t think they had any charm, either.
But of course–kids reading is great, no matter what they’re reading. But if *I’M* going to read the books with the kids, I want something better than Captain Underpants.
I was caught by surprise by the stong anti-Junie B Jones sentiment I encountered. My aunt, who taught kindergarten, gave some to Juliet when she was 5 or 6 and she really liked them and I found them hilarious and fun to read. A reminder that I should get out our collection to read to Kensington.
Claire, yes–do it! I had forgotten about them with Stuart as well and got them out about a year ago, when he was 7. I was afraid we had missed the window, but he loved them.
The best surprise of all? Both of my girls sat on the bed with us and listened in–something that Kennedy NEVER does anymore. Marin does, but sometimes reluctantly. But we read through a couple Junie B. books and laughed and laughed.
We all have our itch to scratch. I never could get excited about Harry Potter. Even though I did always read it with a British accent. Never made it past the first half of book one, although I was thrilled to the boys, nose in a book.
This is great recommendation. I had a student this semester who admitted to being a huge Wimpy Kid fan. He said he’s even looking forward to his four year old being old enough to share the books and films with her.
As for your question, I’m still a big fan of The Goonies and The Sandlot. I own both on VHS. Looking for them cheap on DVD. Also, I really like the Sesame Street movie, Follow That Bird. Saw it again this past year and thought it was super quality.
I like when you say “I dig it.” Way to keep it real, Hill.
I wish I could remember where I heard this stat. Have you all heard of it before?
For a child to grow up and become an adult who avidly reads, it’s more important for them to have parents who read often in front of them than parents who read TO them.
Also, the biggest determining factor for kids who grow up to be adult readers is how many books are kept in the house. Go figure.
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