Conveys, in a good-humoured, sharply observed way, the small, painful cruelties and unpredictable rules of early adolescence, and it celebrates awkwardness without feeling the need to convert it into cheap triumph.

The film retains much of the original humour, some of it well executed. It's reasonably faithful to the spirit of the books, probably because Kinney is the executive producer, but it's by no means equal to his originals.

Perceptive, funny, unusually edgy voyage into the comic travails of schoolyard politics and childhood friendship.

Sadly, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid isn’t a modest, Alan Bennett-style slice of ho-hum life, centered around a shy teenager’s weekend job at a Wimpy Bar in Lewisham. No, this is a big, brassy, colourful, and American, kids’ flick.