Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules – Film Review

After watching the abysmally bad computer-animated Diary of a Wimpy Kid remake from Scott Swinton last year, I had prayed that it would not become a whole new remake series of films for the sake of my own sanity. Sadly, it seems as if that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

The live-action Rodrick Rules film is one of my favorites in the family genre of all time. It’s a legitimately hilarious film that manages to bring tons of surprising emotion to certain plot beats. It develops the relationship between Greg and Rodrick Heffley beautifully and teaches kids the valuable message that family is forever.

None of these touching themes are present in this brand-new computer-animated remake of the film, however. Luke Cormican‘s film may be even worse than the first one if you can believe it. Rodrick Rules is one of the worst animated movies of the year, feeling more like a strange nightmare of a television episode instead of a fully-realized film.

Why are the people responsible for this remake series so deadset on making each installment so ridiculously short? This film runs for a total of just seventy-four minutes including credits, whereas the original Rodrick Rules live-action film runs for a total of one-hundred minutes.

That’s quite a lot of stuff just randomly cut out for no reason whatsoever, and it bugged me immensely. The character of Holly Hills – who is essential to Greg’s development as a character in the live-action films – is nowhere to be found in this entire movie, strangely.

The iconic church scene? Gone. The scene in which Greg and Rodrick bond over pranking people at a convenience store? Gone. The whole magic act scene from the original? Gone. It seriously baffles me as to why the filmmakers thought it would be a good idea to get rid of so many beloved moments from the original film.

Nearly every single scene on display here feels disgustingly soulless and comes across as nothing more than a shameless cash grab. They know that youngsters are going to want to watch this because it’s a “new” Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie. The film feels like it was thrown together without any care in the world.

The only thing I can actually say is quite good in this movie is the voice acting from everyone involved. Brady Noon does a wonderful job as the voice of the titular wimp Greg Heffley, while Hunter Dillon does a great job voicing Greg’s older, aggressive older brother Rodrick.

They’re nowhere near as good as Zachary Gordon and Devon Bostick were in their respective roles in the original series of films, but they still manage to portray these characters quite well, and they thankfully find their own unique ways to make it their own portrayals of these characters.

Aside from that, though, this film is a complete train-wreck. The only thing that this film made me want to do was immediately switch over to the live-action version and bask in all of its glory. Now that I think about it, I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

The new computer-animated Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules is a soulless cash grab that strips away everything that worked so well in the original live-action film.