Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the Long Haul, simply put, is a bad Film.
Summing up The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Long haul = Predictable dialogue, predictable action, predictable repetitive jokes from the past, a lousy no-chemistry cast, and profoundly boring. The fact that everyone in the cast comes off as "acting" is just another nail in the coffin.
About 98% of the reviews on Long Haul point out how bad the movie is. Variety and Hollywood Reporter gave it some kudos. Which shows that a big studio, like Fox, can still "Pay Off" reviewers in an attempt at not making the film a "total bust", which it is.
You had an iconic cast in the first 3 movies that were excellent. The original cast had charm, chemistry, great interaction, and made 3 very entertaining movies based upon Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. This movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the Long Haul, just doesn't connect at all.
The Long Haul film is sort of like a stand alone idea created in an attempt to "con" the public into thinking this is a continuation of the original three movies. It is nothing of the kind. The movie is so bad on all accounts that 20th Century Fox had to go out and try and get the original cast members to say something nice about the movie. But that just came off as a "cheap hustle".
The story and performances are not funny. This movie reeks of predictable action and dialogue, as well as a cast that are, simply put - just bad, without cohesiveness or chemistry.
Our 4 kids, my wife and I really enjoyed the first 3 Wimpy Kid movies and we watch them over again, to this day. I don't think anyone could ever take the place of Zachary Gordon as Greg Heffley, even though a very weak attempt was tried. Gordon "was" Heffley and performed masterfully as the main character and kept true to the personality of Kinney's book series character. In the Wimpy Kid, Long Haul, the part of Rowley, which was so prominent in the first 3 movies and in Kinney's book series, has been completely downplayed to almost non-existence, with little screen time. Let's not even talk about the actor who they chose to play Rowley - what an amateur and not believable in any way.
The actor who plays Rodrick came out of "left field" and is a farce in that he doesn't fit the character of Roderick both in physiology and performance. He doesn't match the characterization as written by Jeff Kinney. Devon Bostick (the original Rodrick) could surely have played the part since Hollywood uses 25-35 year-old's to play Jr. High and High School kids anyway. In addition, attempting to replace Rachel Harris and Steve Zahn with Barrymore and Tom-Everet makes it all an underwhelming, futile attempt at movie making.
This is a movie that should never have been made. The original movies were fun and entertaining. Wimpy Kid, Long Haul is an empty attempt to make money as an "after-thought" and rip off the public because Fox was too stupid to make 6 back-to-back Wimpy movies, which they could have done, when they had the opportunity. Apparently, 20th Century Fox is not a pro-active or foresightful studio as, for example, Warner Brothers or Universal would have been. Ie: Warner Bros shot Harry Potter movies back to back. Fox could have easily made 6 Wimpy Kid series movies from the original cast long before they matured and everyone would have been happy.
Don't waste your time or money on this poor attempt at resurrecting the Wimpy Kid movie world. If the studio had 1/2 a brain, they would have made this an Animation Film instead, which might have garnered some interest from the fans.
Find something else to do with your own time or kids this weekend as sitting through the Wimpy Kid, Long Haul is just that - a boring long haul.
