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And a stick figure shall lead them. The sequel WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES was the box office champion this week, knocking out Zack Snyder’s snappy looking SUCKER PUNCH, $24 million to $20 million. Based on Jeff Kinney’s immensely popular and charming Wimpy Kid series, the success of the film should come as no surprise. We caught a screening on Thursday as the guest of publisher Abrams, and laughed quite a bit — it isn’t as inventive as the books, but the film treats its characters with fondness, and the kid actors are all cute and funny. Plus Devon Bostick, who plays the evil older brother Rodrick, has “teen idol” written all over him in eyeliner. The humor is classic family stuff — one person we talked to compared it to “Christmas Story” and if it isn’t that good, it does have the same kind of classic situations — a party out of control, a scary movie about a foot, a bathroom door without a lock.

A third movie is already in the works — but they better hurry. Star Zachary Taylor is already 13 — that puberty-suppressing regime may not work forever.

Kinney is said to be very involved in the films and in this one you can see it on the screen — he’s seen briefly as the father of winsome crush-object Holly.

1 COMMENT

  1. I’m really happy this movie is successful, not just because of the comic connection, but because it’s actually a really good kids movie. So many kids movies seem to be based on the assumption that kids are total idiots and that in order to grab their interest you must make a movie that is so obnoxious that no adult will be able to sit through it. The exception being Pixar-style animated films, of course, but as far as live-action goes, most kids fair is just unwatchable.

    But every once in a while there are movies like this one that break the rule. The actors are decent, the dialogue is well written, the jokes are funny, and the story is surprisingly moving.

    I wonder how much of this has to do with Jeff Kinney’s involvement. I have not read the books.