Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul * (2017, Jason Drucker, Alicia Silverstone, Tom Everett Scott, Charlie Wright) – Movie Review

After a gap of five years, 2017 brings a surprise fourth movie in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, with an entirely new cast. Jeff Kinney bases his screenplay on his own book, with the script also co-written by the director David Bowers.

Jason Drucker takes over as 12-year-old Greg Heffley, Charlie Wright plays his grunge band drummer 16-year-old brother Rodrick, Alicia Silverstone is mom Susan Heffley, and Tom Everett Scott is dad Frank. They are pretty much lookalikes for the original cast, and try their best with what is offered, which is slim pickings.

It’s a family road trip comedy, and they are getting to be pretty much two a penny, unless you can come up with something new. Here comic invention is fairly low and energy levels stay middle of the road.

The Heffley family take a road trip to attend Meemaw’s 90th birthday party but it is hijacked by Greg’s scheme to fix the car’s sat nav to include a side trip to a video gaming convention. A lot of very silly slapstick comedy, some of it forced, contrived and untruthful, follows, with most of the jokes being of the same daft kind.

OK, we get it, mom is old fashioned and against technology, she wants to use a map to get to Meemaw’s, she wants the family to bond, she likes the Spice Girls. She confiscates their devices, when, left to their own devices, they would be having fun. Kids today! Enough already.

It plays like one of those slack Disney live-action comedies of the Seventies, but it is amiable and harmless enough for its mercifully short 80-minute running time, though even so it feels like a long haul. Of the performers, Silverstone comes off best. The film is lucky to have her.

Zachary Gordon, Devon Bostick, Rachael Harris and Steve Zahn played the four main roles in the original Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010), Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2011) and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (2012). It seemed better back then. Perhaps they should have kept the old cast and told a story about older kids. Franchise fans were upset by the recasting, prompting #notmyrodrick.

[Spoiler alert] After all that, Meemaw does finally appear, but they don’t give her or Gramps a part. It would be a gift to a vintage comedy actress, say, Betty White, but no, there is nothing. As we spent 80 minutes getting to Meemaw’s, she kind of has to be a proper character, no?

On the other hand, time is wasted on a wholly gratuitous and irrelevant parody of the shower scene in Psycho. Why? Because someone likes Psycho, I suppose. Mel Brooks already did it a long time ago in High Anxiety (1977).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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