Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (film)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
"Everyone needs a little vacation"
Genre: Family Comedy Directed by: David Bowers Produced by: Nina Jacobson Brad Simpson Based on: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney Starring: Zachary Gordon Robert Capron Devon Bostick Steve Zahn Racheal Harris Karan Brar Grayson Russel Laine MacNeil Cinematography: Anthony B. Richmond Editing: Troy Takaki Music by: Edward Shearmur Production company: Fox 2000 Pictures Color Force Dune Entertainment Distributed by: 20th Century Studios Inc. Release date: August 3, 2012 Runtime: 94 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $22 million Box office: $77.2 million Franchise: Diary of a Wimpy Kid Prequel: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules Sequel: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (sometimes known as Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3: Dog Days) is a 2012 American comedy film directed by David Bowers from a screenplay by Wallace Wolodarsky and Maya Forbes.

Summary

School's out. Summer vacation is on. However, Greg may not have the best summer vacation ever. What could go wrong?

Qualities That Deserve A Little Vacation

1. It’s the third installment in the film franchise and still manages to stay loyal to the source material very well.
2. Leaves no continuity errors or last-minute changes and actually occurs not too long after the events of the second movie, where Greg learns to be a better son after learning to be a better friend and a better brother in the first and second installments respectively.
3. The cartoon aspect the film takes from the book is amazing and still looks as if it were drawn by Jeff Kinney himself.
4. Greg and Rodrick's friendship from the previous film continues in this film, for example, when Greg and Rodrick help each other out where Greg helps Rodrick get to perform at Heather's Sweet 16 and Rodrick not snitching on Greg when he admits to Rodrick of not having a job.
5. Brilliant acting, especially from Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron, and Devon Bostick.
6. A very interesting sub-plot about Rodrick developing a crush on Holly’s older sister, Heather, and gives more scenes developing her as a character and showing the differences between the relationship between Greg and Holly, and Rodrick and Heather.
7. The scenes are incredibly funny and memorable, like the scene where Greg and Rowley go on the Cranium Shaker, the scene where Greg and Rowley play tennis with Holly and Patty, and the scene where Greg thinks his dad's hand is the Muddy Hand.
8. There is a very heartwarming moment that pretty much tops the book where Greg's dad, Frank, decides not to send Greg to Spag Union as he recalls how a person should learn from their mistakes, while the book just involves Frank deciding to pay Greg back for getting him out of a birthday party.
9. The shot where Greg and Frank in the tent at night where they are so far apart emotionally, after the scene where Frank finds out Greg doesn't have a job and states his disappointment, is a great one because it perfectly shows the state of their relationship at that moment of how they feel so apart from each other but they have to share a tent together inspite of this.
10. Greg Heffley, Rowley Jefferson, Rodrick, and many others are still the likable and relatable characters as they were before while staying loyal to their book counterparts.
11. A very decent message for most kids about how they should embrace the outside and get out of the house instead of being indoors all day, especially during summer break with proper execution.

No Vacation Qualities

1. Sweetie is underused in this film, explaining the title's irony.
2. Product placement like the PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, Coke, Utz, and among others, although nowhere near as much as the following movie.
3. The infamous scene where a lifeguard does CPR on Rodrick.
4. Its infamous sequel Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul was not well received like these films and killed the entire film series as a whole.
   • Before then, it is basically the weakest movie of the trilogy.
5. As usual with the other movies, Greg seem to get tortured by his family, Rowley's family, and Sweetie as there are many instances of doing so:
   • In the opening scene, he searches Manny in the public pool, but he has a hard time finding him, because there are crowded people.
   • His parents tell him to lessen video games and focus more time on their wholesome routine, fishing, camping, and making a book club. Worse, they ban video games for Greg and TV for both him and Rodrick because they spend time goofing off.
   • When Frank adopt Sweetie as their new family, she plays with Greg, much to his chagrin and embarassment.
   • As Rodrick's grandparents tell both Rowley and Greg to play in the country fair for an hour, they wait to ride the Cranium Shaker that waits for 1 hour and 5 minutes by playing other attractions. Once they finish the waiting time, they ride the Cranium Shaker, only to find out that it is scary and causes them to get traumatized. This resulted in Rowley's parents getting scolded by Rowley.
   • He hijacks the laptop of Rowley's grandfather by typing "HELP HELP GET ME OUT OF THERE THESE PEOPLE ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY" so that he can post it to everyone, which succeeded, but causes everyone to blame on him, thus kicking out of Rowley's grandparent's house.
   • In the country club, he attempts to dive on the diving board, but the little girl bullies Greg by stepping on the board, cuasing him to dive on the pool but lost his swimming trunks, only to toss it on the wall.
     • Worse, Greg is mature in this movie, judging by his voice, but his actions are inexcusable, just like the previous two.

Reception

Just like Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010) and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, it recieved mixed reviews from critics, but it was well recieved by the audience and the fans of the book series. On Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, the film has an approval rating of 51% based on 71 reviews and an average rating of 5.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Overly familiar and a bit too reliant on slapstick, the sitcom-like Dog Days fails to improve upon previous installments and will likely appeal to few outside its target audience." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 54 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Abby West of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+ and wrote "Though often self-centered and conniving, Greg remains a likable kid, and the movie entertains by pulling off over-the-top scenarios that set up digestible life lessons for youngsters."

Trivia

• This is the final time Zachary Gordon starring in the movie before he became a high schooler.

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