Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules 2011

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: The physical comedy will have the typical 10-year-old and some grown-ups cackling with glee. Read more

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: As portrayed by Zachary Gordon, Greg lacks ... charm and spontaneity ... No real sparks of mischievousness or bone-deep embarrassment or endearing flush of affection light this kid up. Read more

Mike Hale, New York Times: About the most you can say for it is that it's inoffensive, which isn't necessarily what you want in a movie about the humiliations of being a seventh grader with a bullying older brother. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: In many ways, what works about "Rodrick Rules" is the reverse of the first film, which found the ethically challenged Greg willing to throw his geeky friends under the bus to improve his social status. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: It's hard not to watch the Wimpy Kid movies through webbed fingers. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It's still not all that great, but at least this time around lessons are learned and, yes, there occasionally is something to laugh at. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: Credit Bowers and company, finally, for making some good calls about where to follow the leads furnished to them by the book and the first movie, and where to get creative. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: I didn't laugh much, nor did my 10-year-old companions, but nobody had their soul crushed by the experience. This is the film industry's Hippocratic oath: First, crush no souls. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Rodrick Rules marks an improvement on the original Wimpy Kid, but it still has a mean streak a mile wide. Read more

Nancy Churnin, Dallas Morning News: Sequels, like younger brothers, often struggle to form their own identity. Happily, this hotly awaited follow-up to last year's hit adaptation of Jeff Kinney's wildly popular Wimpy Kid book series establishes its own charming reason for being. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: They've wimped out. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: Inane and exasperating and hard to watch. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: A somewhat witty kids movie falls victim to sequelitis. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: Director David Bowers keeps things peppy and brightly lighted, but the movie's swiftest pleasures come from moment-seizing cast members... Read more

Linda Holmes, NPR: For the most part this is a collection of set pieces that movies have served up many, many times before. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Somehow feels even thinner than the black-and-white line drawings that fill Kinney's books and are used here in the title sequence. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Seventh-graders are far cooler and more anarchic than depicted in this often-dopey movie, which is aimed at more of a fourth-grade sensibility. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Here's a tween comedy you don't have to be a tween to enjoy. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Lacks much of the mischievous, subversive appeal of last year's debut film... Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series might more aptly be titled Diary of a Wimpy Family.. The film sequel is more engaging than the original was because it spends more time at home. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: The smart dialogue and kid's-eye-view of the torments of school life remain as satisfyingly amusing as the first outing, but this Wimpy Kid is slightly off-kilter. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules is full of lively slapstick. Read more

Derek Adams, Time Out: Most of the kids continue to irritate and, for a comedy aimed at youngsters, the laughs are woefully scarce. Read more

Scott Bowles, USA Today: None of it amounts to belly-aching laughs, but Rodrick clicks in much the way A Christmas Story became a cult hit, by viewing the world through the eyes of an ordinary kid. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Endearing underdog hero Greg Heffley returns for another year of middle-school humiliation. Read more

Ella Taylor, Village Voice: Shifting from the original's focus on the experiences of Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) at the ignored-runt end of middle school to domestic tyranny at the hands of his bullying big brother (Devon Bostick, a fledgling Jeff Goldblum) is ill-advised. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: The problem doesn't really lie in the acting but in the writing. There's too much effort expended on making the kids cute and cuddly, instead of plausible. Read more