Movie Review: Diary of a Wimpy kid: The Long Haul

Directed by David Bowers 

2 Stars 

The movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, simply put, is terrible. The movie is based on the ninth book of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. In the movie, Greg Heffley has just finished the school year and is looking forward to doing nothing during the summer. Then, his mom unexpectedly announces that the whole family will be going on a road trip to their relatives' birthday party. At first, Greg is very disappointed, but he then realizes that the road trip could be his chance for him to go to a video game convention and meet famous YouTuber Mac Digby. Throughout the road trip, he devises plans and schemes for him to go to the video game convention. In the book, Greg and his family go on a trip just for fun, but in the film, they go to celebrate their grandmother's birthday. 

Also, in the movie, Greg tries to get out at a video game convention, but in the book, that never happens. So, the movie was very different from the book, and it was just a generic movie about a family going on a road trip. In my opinion, it didn't deserve the Diary of a Wimpy Kid title. If the film had a different title and was not part of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise, I probably wouldn't have hated it as much. The actors also changed in this film and they were horrible for their roles. Specifically, the recasting for Rodrick Heffley was very poorly done. Fans of the first three movies were furious with the recasting, and I was too; it even sparked the #NotMyRodrickCampaign. An effort was made to change the casting of the movie. Overall, I did not like this movie one bit; I would give it 2 stars, and even that is generous. Just read the book or watch one of the first 3 movies, I would recommend Rodrick Rules. 

Reviewed by Zahra 

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