Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Turns out replacing Rodrick was least of the movie's problems.

Genre:	Comedy Action Family
Directed By:	David Bowers
Produced By:	Nina Jacobson Brad Simpson
Written By:	Jeff Kinney David Bowers Adam Sztykiel (uncredited)
Based On:	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul by Jeff Kinney
Starring:	Jason Drucker Alicia Silverstone Tom Everett Scott Charlie Wright Owen Asztalos
Cinematography:	Anthony B. Richmond
Distributed By:	20th Century Fox
Release Date:	May 19, 2017 (United States) May 25, 2017 (United Kingdom)
Runtime:	91 minutes
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Budget:	$22 million
Box Office:	$40 million
Franchise:	Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Prequel:	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

"He just craps on the name that is Rodrick Heffley. This is just not Rodrick. If he played maybe a character in a Beavis and Butthead live-action movie, then maybe he would be alright, but it just doesn't fit here. It just doesn't fit at all and it's more annoying than anything. There is no reason to even make this movie."
— 24 Frames Of Nick

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul is a 2017 American family road comedy film directed by David Bowers. It is the fourth installment in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid film series and is based on the ninth and tenth books in the series, The Long Haul and Old School, and one element based on the eighth book Hard Luck.

It was released theatrically on May 19, 2017 by 20th Century Fox, and grossed $40 million worldwide on a $22 million production cost.

Plot

Young Greg Heffley is looking forward to a long summer of just hanging out, but his mother throws a monkey wrench into his plans when she forces the entire family to take a road trip for a relative's birthday celebration. His eyes soon light up after he realizes that the excursion is his ticket to a gaming convention to meet YouTube sensation Mac Digby. Greg's imagination then kicks into overdrive as he sneakily hatches a scheme to attend the expo and gain some much-deserved fame.

Why It Sucks

In this film none of the characters (Apart from the Heffleys and Rowley) has returned let along has some connections to the first three films. This makes this film more like a reboot then the sequel to the third film.
- The new cast members do not necessarily match the roles and appearances of the characters from the previous three films; they also have rather lousy chemistry, unlike the first three films, and this is especially noticeable between the Heffley family and other characters.
  - Greg looks way too young for a middle schooler, as he looks more like an elementary schooler than an actual middle schooler.
  - Rodrick's appearance doesn't match the books or previous films, as his new actor lacks the proper look Devon Bostick had. Unlike in the previous three films, his personality feels rather fake and one-dimensional.
  - Susan Heffley hardly looks anything like she did in the previous three films; in the first three films, Rachael Harris had brown hair, whereas Alicia Silverstone has blonde hair. The performance of Rachel Harris matched the character's personality well, especially her overprotective-ness, in the first three films, whereas here the performance from Alicia Silverstone seems more threatening and aggressive, which not only fails to match the original performance of Rachel Harris but also makes her feel more like a bully rather than a parent.
  - Frank is an incredibly boring character compared to the performance of Steve Zahn in the first three films, in which he was way funnier and more interesting.
  - Manny doesn't look anything like he did in the first three films, as he now has curly hair for some reason.
Lazy and unnatural acting; you could replace the existing characters with some other random characters and it would not make any difference.
Very weak, unoriginal and poorly-executed story that steals elements from films such as A Goofy Movie, as well as a confusing and hard-to-follow climax.
Sequel baiting: Susan Heffley mention to Greg how they will be flying for their next vacation, but this was never resolved, especially considering how it failed in the box office.
While The Long Haul still uses elements from the books, it focuses a lot on telling its own story rather than adapting the story of the book in which the film is based on, leading to a rather poor grasp of the source material.
- In the book, the Heffleys head to Disneyland; however, in this film, they go on a road trip for four days to visit Meemaw for her 90th birthday, which Greg thought was unexciting and a waste of time.
- The scene at the water park from the book is not present in this film.
- In Hard Luck, Meemaw is rumored to be dead; but in this film, she is alive.
- In the book, the youngest child in the Beardo family is a boy; but in this film, they are a girl.
- They go to the Corny's restaurant in The Third Wheel, not in the original story of The Long Haul.
There is almost no good comedy or humor in this film, which ruins all of the comedic humor from the previous films and books.
The film constantly panders to teenagers who use their phones a lot, resulting in cringe-worthy references to outdated memes and apps such as Snapchat.
- It also heavily relies on toilet and gross-out humor; while the previous films did have some gross-out humor, they did not heavily rely on it and instead used character interactions as the main source of humor. Specific examples of this include:
  - While hiding from Mr. Beardo, Greg uses the toilet and you can hear him defecating.
  - The infamous scene where Greg gets a diaper stuck to his hand and becomes "Diaper Hands".
  - When Mr. Beardo chases after Greg on the carnival ride, he pushes down on Rodrick's stomach, causing him to puke, with an added slow motion effect to worsen it.
Constant reuse of the same background extras. The worst part of this is that some of them stare directly in front of the camera.
There is very confusing logic in this film, even if it is meant to be based on reality.
- The car's engine somehow gets damaged when they run into a soft hay bale.
- Greg is somehow able to access the Beardos' hotel room without a key card, even though all key cards are meant to only unlock a specific room.
- The Heffleys think that it is somehow fine to push their car at a very quick speed down the incredibly steep hill in front of Meemaw's house and get into the car as they do it. However, in real life, the family (except Greg, who is in the boat) would likely die because of the steepness of the hill and the car's speed, which would cause them to crash into Meemaw's house.
  - In addition, it seems impossible for Rodrick, Manny, Susan and Frank to be in Meemaw's backyard so soon after the boat flies into the pool, safe and sound. They would need to get out of the car, ring the doorbell and have someone at least open the door. This would take around one-two minutes yet they arrive just fifteen seconds after the boat flies into the pool.
- As a poor attempt at humor, the emotional moments are stopped almost immediately, since the film just crams into yet another unneeded joke when it tries to be emotional.
Manny wins a pig and somehow it's all Greg's fault, even though he was trying to prevent the whole situation from happening.
Uses product placements, consisting of Dunkin' Donuts, Pepsi, Vtech, Instagram and Apple products. This also includes references to mainstream pop culture like Undertale, Minecraft, YouTube and Twitter streamers.
- On that topic, Greg's main goal in this film is to be featured in Mac Digby's (his favorite YouTuber) gaming stream.
- Speaking of mainstream pop culture, the movie relies too much on being hip and current; there are references to selfies, MLG memes (which are dated), social media, internet celebrities and cars with engine start buttons.
- One of the cringiest moments in the film is where Rodrick looks at cosplay on Greg's phone.
The Heffleys' characterizations have been butchered and they often behave in a nonsensical, annoying, frustrating and idiotic manner.
- For example, instead of calling the cops on the Beardos, the Heffleys decide to chase them down and break into their hotel just to get their stuff back. However, this did happen in the book.
- Susan has a massive ego and is an extremely selfish and immature parent. She is also a huge Mary Sue who yells constantly, bashes modern technology and belittles what her family likes and don't like while caring more about what she likes. In fact, she doesn't even care the slightest that she humiliates Greg at the expo and is more concerned about running the trip the way she wants it and gets away with it, making her a karma houdini. Even her apology seen nearly at the end of the movie does not excuse her for the things she has done that.
  - What makes this aspect worse is that in the third film, Susan says "you can't take away what they love" to Frank, even if that is exactly what she does here. Not only does this contradict the previous film, but this can also count as hypocrisy.
- Another example is Greg not telling his family about the Beardos, who are literally trying to kill him. Though this could be because he thinks he will be blamed for it, which is likely.
- Instead of trying to get their stuff back from the Beardos who stole it in the first place, Susan is more concerned about getting cleaned than getting their stuff back, which is the whole point of the attempt to break into the motel room in the first place.
- Greg somehow thinks that Indianapolis is near Meemaw's house on a map that is scaled, and he should know that maps aren't like that, implying that he doesn't understand how maps work.
There is one scene where Greg almost gets run over by a car and Susan is more concerned about Manny taking a nap than Greg almost getting hurt and tells him to be careful because he almost woke up Manny. Instead of being grateful that her son wasn't killed, Susan takes this for granted and is worried about something far less important. This just shows how horrible and neglectful Susan can be.
The morals were mostly bad and felt extremely shoved in.
The action scenes are so lame to the point where even the action scenes from the previous films have done better.
The film features an uninteresting chain of events that only serve to pad out the running time.
Abysmal production values, considering the author, Jeff Kinney, would much rather have an animated adaptation of Cabin Fever, which would have been marketed as a theatrical film or a television special, but somehow decided to go with a fourth film with an all-new cast, which unfortunately didn't help.
The movie often acts like spending time with your family and taking a break from technology is a problem, with Greg even saying "we need things like video games and smartphones to survive" in the beginning, which is a very bad and false moral.
Atrocious CGI for the seagulls and the mouse, which look absolutely fake and unrealistic.
The ending makes no sense and is rather tiresome to sit through, especially compared to the first three films.
Greg almost does not learn anything in this movie or the movie did not try to build up the lesson. In the first three movies, Greg learns to be a better friend, a better son, and a better brother, but here, Greg does not learn anything at all.
It eventually killed off the live-action Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie trilogy, since an animated reboot movie was announced to come out on Disney+ in 2021.
Like Home Alone: Taking Back the House, The real-life movie itself feels more like a pilot episode for a television series than an actual 4th movie.

Redeeming Qualities

Like all Wimpy Kid movies, the 2D animation segments are still well done, though different to accommodate a diorama aesthetic.
Passable musical score composed by Edward Shearmur.
Jeff Kinney, the creator of the book series, makes a cameo appearance in one scene.
Despite the terrible casting choices, it does make sense to have a new cast as the old cast grew up.
Most of the Heffleys realize their flaws at the end and apologize for their behaviours.

Reception

Trailer reaction

On February 23, 2017, a theatrical poster and teaser trailer were released, and the following month, the official trailer was released. Both trailers received negative feedback from fans for its recasting of the main characters. Many took to social media to further express their outrage and began using the hashtag "#NotMyRodrick", which eventually became a widespread meme. Other hashtags included "#NotMyHeffleys" and "#NotMyRowley".

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 18% based on 71 reviews and an average rating of 4.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "With an all-new cast but the same juvenile humor, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul finds the franchise still stuck in arrested – and largely unfunny – development." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 36 out of 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, down from the first three films' "A-," as well as a 4.3/10 on IMDb.

Box office

The film opened in about 3,174 theaters, the second-biggest opening for a Diary of a Wimpy Kid film, after Dog Days, The Long Haul grossed $20.7 million in the United States and Canada and $19.3 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $40.1 million, against a production budget of $22 million. It was the lowest-grossing film of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

In North America, the film was initially projected to gross around $12 million from 3,129 theaters during its opening weekend. However, after grossing $2 million on its first day, projections were lowered to $7 million. It ended up finishing with $7.1 million, placing 6th at the box office and marking the lowest opening of the franchise.

When the film was released in the United Kingdom, it opened on #2, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Baywatch with a total of £1,444,092.

The film has grossed over $2.6 million in the United States through home video sales.

Trivia

Because the release dates of this film and the previous Diary of a Wimpy Kid film are so spaced apart, child actors such as Zachary Gordon from the previous films did not reprise their roles due to being too old for their characters. Also many of the adult actors had begun working on other projects. So it was the easiest decision to invite an entire new cast for the film.
Tom Everett Scott and Steve Zahn, who have shared the role of Frank Heffley, both starred together in the movie That Thing You Do!, and are friends in real life.
Due to Disney's completed acquisition of the Fox assets (including 20th Century Fox and its subsidiaries) and immediate film cancellations, this marks one of the last times 20th Century Fox and most of its subsidiaries have based one of their films off of any already existing work that is necessary to create.

Trivia

Greg’s original voice actor, Zachary Gordon didn’t reprise his role because he is now in college during production and is replaced with Jason Drucker.

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MeggieConte

22 months ago

Score 6

If you're looking for a bunch of kids messing around with their lives, watch South Park. I guarantee you're gonna love it. Stay far away from this abomination, you have been warned.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Plot

Why It Sucks

Redeeming Qualities

Reception

Trailer reaction

Critical response

Box office

Trivia

Trivia

Videos

External Links

Comments

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