Written by Luke Barnes
Summary
A new animated take on the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney.
Where to begin on what went wrong with this film.
I think the most obvious place to start is that this film is a carbon copy of the much better live action version, it lifts scenes and lines of dialogue from that film and that just serves to remind you how needless this film really is, it is an animated reskin of a better product that came out just long ago enough for kids today to not remember it.
Speaking of the animation there is something noticeably off with it. I can’t quite put my finger on what is wrong, but there is certainly something going wrong with the lighting and the framing of it a lot of the time throughout the film. The animation style itself is fairly ugly, I understand they have chosen it to look closer to the books however it looks cheap and low rent.
The voice cast for the most part is doing their best to mimic the performances from the beloved live action films, and whilst in a few cases the effort is valiant, it never really rises to the occasion and lacks a lot of the charm and the warmth that made the performances in the live action films what they were.
Overall, entirely needless.
Pros.
It is short and if you close your eyes at times it feels like you are watching the live action version.
Cons.
The animation is off
It feels wholly unneeded and unoriginal
It is unfunny
It lacks any charm or warmth
If you enjoyed this review, then please head over to my Patreon to support me, I offer personalized shoutouts, the ability for you to pick what I review next and full access to my Patreon exclusive game reviews. Check it out!
Another Millennial Reviewer 
I never read the books, but I thought the movies were cute. I guess the kid actors got too old to continue with the live-action series?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, very much so you could see exactly that in the third film, they tried to recast younger for the fourth film but it didn’t take
LikeLiked by 1 person