4/10
Diary of an Awful Cash Grab: Disney Rules
18 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I wasn't really expecting a sequel to the first animated adaptation of Diary of a Wimpy Kid after how badly it turned out to be. As expected, this animated adaptation of the second book with the same name isn't much better.

This one being about Greg Heffley and his older brother Rodrick Heffley learning how to get along is only slightly better in terms of the story. I'll admit there are like three minor improvements being the fact that it's longer than its predecessor with an actual feature length runtime, the fact that it doesn't feel as tedious, and the scene with Greg's grandfather was a nice addon to the story. This is all I'm going to give this film. It still feels like a poorly written brother bond plot that tries to stretch out the story from the original book. The first movie lacked a cohesive story because it was too short, but this one lacks a cohesive story because not much is able to be added. When the live action adaptation of Rodrick Rules was made, the filmmakers also adapted the third book Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw into the picture which honestly helped structure the storyline better due to the simplicity of the second book it's based on. It may sound like a nitpick but not much really happens in this film and the characters still have trouble developing properly.

Rodrick Heffley is meant to be the careless older brother who bullies Greg and his only goal is to play at a school talent show for his Loaded Diper band, unfortunately he's not very imitating here. Greg isn't really unlikable which is good but he doesn't develop either and both Heffleys are just seen arguing in a series of events that leads to mostly nothing. It also confuses me how Greg's parents Susan and Frank Heffley left them at home and went on the Heffley trip without them when neither of them have done anything wrong to deserve it. Oh wait that's because they left out the scene where Rodrick embarasses Greg at church, no wonder that feels off.

Just like its predecessor the animation still looks uncanny and unfinished. I would've thought after a whole year of production Disney would let the animation team upgrade the awful 3D models but they didn't. It once again just looks like nobody cares about the visual work of this movie that needs to be polished in order to fit CGI. It's even more noticeable when some of the background characters look like disfigured shapes smooshed together.

Yeah this is pretty much what you would expect from a Disney+ cashgrab sequel to a cashgrab adaptation. They had a chance to improve and they didn't. It's just telling us how worthless these newer animated movies on their streaming service aren't worth anyone's time.
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