Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

My sister is a big fan of the books, I even read a few pages of one, so I kind of know what the fuss is about. The books are different, they are as they say - a diary. Greg Heffley's to be exact. And what makes the books even more appealing is that they look like a diary, there are page lines and the writing looks like a kid wrote it (but neater) and there are cute pictures and comics. Like Harry Potter, the Wimpy Kid books are getting kids reading, but with more realistic content this time around. The movie I am reviewing is the second one, I haven't seen the first.

Greg Heffley lives in modern suburbia with his parents and one older and one younger brother. Roderick is the older one. If you are like me and have limited knowledge of the Wimpy Kid, you may have thought, like me, that the chubby kid lip-syncing to Kesha in the commercial was Rodrick. We were wrong, that was the friend Rowley. So the commercial tells us nothing about the movie, perhaps even misleading us a bit. But I guess if we read the books in their entirety we would have known better.

Anyways, Rodrick Rules focuses on Greg`s relationship with his brother and there is a love interest and a talent show - the middle school staples. Now Rodrick is mean, like really mean. I have a brother that is four years younger than me, and we have never been that mean to each other, not even close. Rodrick seems to enjoy ruining Greg`s life. I thought maybe Rodrick was that mean so that kids could feel better about their own mean siblings, "at least my brother/sister isn't as mean as Rodrick" etc. But still, some sadistic kids might think it's funny and get ideas about how this kind of cruelty can be acceptable. Ok, so maybe that was a little extreme, but I still thought there were spots were Rodrick was unnecessarily mean.

Verdict: The story was cute enough, I watched the whole thing. Rowley was adorable. The kid playing Greg did a good job. Steve Zahn played the dad and had some funny parts.