Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (2012)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010), Rodrick Rules and Dog Days.

With the success of Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010) and Rodrick Rules, a third installment was inevitable. This third film, Dog Days, released in 2012, meaning the entire original trilogy came out within the span of only three years. While impressive in its own right, this release schedule also runs the risk of diluting the end product for the sake of meeting such tight deadlines. Unfortunately, for all of its charm, Dog Days’ quick turnaround results in the least focused of the original live-action trilogy, as though they had rushed it out so they could keep the same cast before they got too old.

At a local pool, Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) and his family run into Lenwood Heath (Torn Stevens), a former delinquent friend of Rodrick’s (Devon Bostick) who reformed after attending Spag Union, a military school that begins at eighth grade. Frank (Steve Zahn), Greg’s father, notes that Greg is about to enter the eight grade and considers signing him up. When summer starts, Frank is encouraged to spend more time with Greg, but their attempts at bonding end in disaster. One day, Greg goes with his friend Rowley (Robert Capron) to a country club, where he learns that his crush, Holly Hills (Peyton List), teaches tennis there. At home, Greg, desperate to get his father off his back, lies and says he has a job at the country club. Though Frank is impressed, he continues trying to teach his son about being responsible, even going so far as getting the family a new dog, Sweetie, and giving Greg a starter phone.

Much like the original film, Dog Days follows multiple plot threads, each concerning Greg’s relationships with his father, Holly and Rowley. Sometime after Greg starts going to the country club, there’s another subplot, this time concerning Rodrick and his crush on Holly’s older sister, Heather (Melissa Roxburgh). At this point, the story feels a bit stuffed with plots, but it manages to juggle the major ones fairly well, especially when they revolve around the country club. In particular, the core of Greg connecting with his father has a nice payoff with Frank accepting his son’s imperfections and realizing how alike they are, Rodrick teaming up with Greg feels like a good follow-up to Rodrick Rules and Greg’s development around Holly works.

Greg (Zachary Gordon, left) is largely motivated by
his crush on Holly (Peyton List, right).

Beyond that, however, the film starts falling apart. From the main plotlines, Greg’s friendship with Rowley feels genuine, but the story really tests its believability due to the reckless and impulsive decisions on Greg’s part that bring misfortune to the Jeffersons. Outside of that, the film is very good at introducing things and not doing much with them to fit the 94-minute runtime. Greg joining a scout troop, for instance, isn’t explored much, a subplot with Chirag Gupta (Karan Brar) barely factors in at all and there aren’t very many scenes with Sweetie. There are others I could mention, like the single instance of a book club that Greg’s mother Susan (Rachael Harris) started, but the point is that Dog Days feels overstuffed and removing or altering some of these elements could have helped the pacing outside of adding a few more minutes.

Despite the pacing issues, however, the film is still laugh-out-loud funny, much like the first two. Some of the jokes land really well and some subplots have a hilarious payoff, including the Heather subplot and even the underdeveloped scout subplot. Though I wish there were more standout moments like the previous installments, I still appreciated when the humor worked.

As expected of a Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie by this point, the film incorporates the visual style of the books in a natural way. While not to the same extent of the original, where we saw one scene from Greg’s perspective in that style, a blend of animation and live-action effectively introduces the cast at the beginning and some animated sequences help illustrate some of Greg’s thoughts. The actors also do a good job with the material they have to work with, with Devon Bostick in particular turning in a great performance as Rodrick, making him one of the saving graces of the film.

Devon Bostick's portrayal of Rodrick is a highlight of the movie.

Like Rodrick Rules, Dog Days has an effective use of licensed music, though the inclusion of “Baby” by Justin Bieber feels very of the time (for perspective, the original Dog Days book came out one year before the song and the film two years after). On the upside, the moment Löded Diper performs a hard rock cover is an instant highlight of the film.

Although easily the weakest of the original film trilogy, Dog Days is still worth a watch if you’ve previously seen Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010) and Rodrick Rules. While overstuffed, it’s still a good way to spend an hour and a half.