Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

The second installment of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” franchise finds Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) about to embark on the perils of seventh grade, but his biggest problem is no longer the cheese touch. It’s his brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick).

Greg Heffley knows that deep down, he’s a cool dude, despite his less than stellar status at school, his goofy best friend Rowley (Robert Capron), and his frequent humiliation by his mother. A new, blond cutie at school ups the ante. He desperately wants to find his inner James Dean.

His biggest obstacle is his brother Rodrick, a slacker, drum playing, car screeching teenager. Rodrick has decided that the most diverting part of his life is actively harassing his younger brother. They fight in the morning. They fight in the evening. Ain’t they got fun?

The boys’ long suffering mother (Rachael Harris) lays down an ultimatum: The boys will spend a weekend, alone, at home and learn to work out their differences. Of course, that just gives Rodrick a chance to throw a party and lock Greg in the basement.

The cover-up for the party, however, is just the thing to make them a team.

This charming movie will be a lot of fun for families. When mom halts the music at the roller rink to “rescue” Greg in front of his peers, we all laugh at the inadvertent humiliation moms cause their tween sons. When Rodrick explains his rules for getting out of work (“If you don’t want to do something, do it extremely poorly so dad will take over”) we recognize the tricks our own kids use.

The first half of the movie plays like multiple skits strung together with a weak story, albeit funny skits. Then the movie finds its sibling rivalry grounding and becomes much more coherent. Gordon and Bostick find a nice chemistry and their ultimate discovery that they do care for each other makes casts a warm glow over the film.

For the most part, though, it’s hard to be a seventh grader, with a friend who insists on performing magic tricks (In public!) and a girl rival who can easily beat you up (again in public!).

The content is entirely appropriate, even laughably so: the wildest thing happening at Rodrick’s out of control high school party is people spraying whipped cream directly from the can into their mouths. There is one scene, however, in which Greg and Rowley ill-advisedly watch a horror film. It’s called “The Foot” and ends with a bloodless, disembodied foot up someone’s nose, but the spoof was enough to give my little guy a hard time sleeping. If your kids are sensitive to such things, watch out.

My little guy also didn’t enjoy one scene in which Rodrick forces Greg into public in his tighty-whiteys. He found it too embarrassing. Awkward humiliation seems to be the new funny these days, with everything from “The Office” to “Hall Pass” to reality TV dealing in it. It used to be that people wrote jokes. Maybe the tide will turn soon and we can find other ways of getting a laugh.