Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules

Greg Heffley, the kid who made “wimpy” cool, is back in this side-splitting sequel based on the second installment of the best-selling book series. Having rid himself of the Cheese Touch, Greg enters the seventh grade with his confidence and friendships intact, and an eye on the new girl in town, Holly Hills. But things have gotten out of hand at home, especially with his big brother, Rodrick, and Greg is about to learn that there may be something even scarier than middle school–his own familyial Features:
• Featurettes: My Summer Vacation, My Zoo-Wee Vacation! by Rowley Jefferson and My Magick Summer by Greg Heffley• Gag reel
Brothers aren’t supposed to get along, so it should come as no surprise that Greg and his older sibling Rodrick fight continuously. However, their mother has a different idea about what the relationship between two brothers should look like, and she writes a column about it for the local newspaper, so she should know. Never one to let nature take its course, Mum tries a variety of strategies to get the boys to bond–everything from the incentive-driven “mom bucks” to punishing them by leaving them home together for the weekend while the rest of the family heads to the water park. The wild party and ensuing chaos that one would expect when two boys are left home alone happens right on schedule, but so does a surprising development in the boys’ relationship with one another. Greg pours his every thought about the difficulties of surviving middle school and living with brothers into his journal in this film, which is based on Jeff Kinney’s book Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. While it’s definitely a different experience to see the cartoon stick figures from the book morph into human forms in the live-action film, director David Bowers and actors Zachary Gordon, Devon Bostick, Robert Capron, and Rachael Harris do a good job of preserving the feel of the book–specifically, how each of the characters is driven by emotion and how they are often overwhelmed by their sense of mental conflict and anguish. Kids frankly state that The Diary of a Wimpy Kid films aren’t as good as the bestselling books, but that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy the movies or that they won’t be clamouring to see them. (Ages 7 and older) –Tami Horiuchi