- 7
This is unfailingly modest comedy fuel for 12-year-olds...
—Robert Abele Los Angeles Times
- 7
...that rare film that addresses kids of a certain age without being condescending.
—Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times
- 6
...manages some earnest laughs with old-fashioned sentiment.
—Scott Bowles USA Today
- 6
...blends "Brady Bunch"-style morality with other standard-issue sitcom tropes, then redeems itself via memorable supporting characters.
—Peter Debruge Variety
- 6
...chugs along inoffensively enough.
—Ella Taylor Village Voice
- 6
...chugs along inoffensively enough.
—Ella Taylor LA Weekly
- 5
...a dull, square follow-up...
—Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly
- 5
...feels less pushy and more relaxed [than the first]...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.
—Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune
- 5
...for the most part, Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2 is just a rehash of redundancies repeated ad nauseum in the world of clueless kid vid. Instead of challenging the underage viewer, the movies believe that everything should be shallow, silly, and easy to digest.
—Bill Gibron filmcritic.com
- 5
...ever-so-slightly more palatable (than the original), if only for being less of a total spazz.
—Scott Tobias Onion AV Club
- 5
...rarely as lively and funny as it should be.
—Nick Schager Slant Magazine
- 5
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.
—Kyle Smith New York Post
- 4
A year after the original film surprised adults by being a kids' movie with a degree of wit, a sequel arrives, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, that is positively wimpy.
—Kirk Honeycutt Hollywood Reporter
- 4
...a sequel with _straight to video_ written all over it. 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.
—Mike Hale New York Times