Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever

• Directed by Luke Cormican
• December 8, 2023
• Based on the 2011 book Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney
• Disney+

Voice Cast

• Greg Heffley-Wesley Kimmel
• Rowley Jefferson-Spencer Howell
• Susan Heffley-Erica Cerra
• Frank Heffley-Chris Diamantopoulos
• Rodrick Heffley-Hunter Dillon
• Manny Heffley-Gracen Newton
• Gabby (also called Snowplow Lady)-Lisa Ann Walter
• Officer Vasquez-Gabriel Iglesias
• Officer Leonard-Ego Nwodim
• Mr. Jefferson-Randy Pearlstein

Greg Heffley is snowed in during Christmas with his family and must hide his involvement in an incident so he can get his dream Christmas gift.

I’ve heard of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books but can’t say I know much about them beyond the style used for the images in those books. Having said that I haven’t even seen any of the movies but being on the lookout for something Christmasy, all things considered I decided to give this a look.

The story involves an elf on the shelf knock-off, the need to be good, and accidentally getting involved in some misbehavior taken to the absurd yet an absurd that has a tinge of reality when looking at it from a child’s perspective. Greg is a bit of a jerk but a young jerk. He spends much of Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever trying to cover up his involvement in breaking a plow by hiding the evidence with the help of his only friend and accomplice in the incident Rowley. He is repeatedly hindered by something.

Greg is not even that type of kid that is basically good but does something bad. He is selfish and in this movie only thinking about a gaming system that he wants when tries to hide his involvement in damaging a plow. He is not feeling guilt over what he did. Rather it is fear he will not get the gift that he knows is hidden in the house waiting to be opened on Christmas. The whole point of everything is to string out discovery until AFTER Christmas morning so it is officially his.

From what I have read about the books this lines up well with them. I also understand that author Jeff Kinney has stated he never intended to write children’s books. It just seems like a terrible character to focus a movie clearly aimed at children on.

Greg ‘learns’ a lesson by the end of this and that lesson is to take responsibility. While ultimately an accident, his actions did hurt someone and the lesson is that his avoidance of taking responsibility causes more problems rather than simply owning up to what he did. That is an unusually rare lesson in today’s day and age. But Greg suffers no real consequences.

There is the hindrance of his brother Rowley threatening to expose him but really doesn’t do too good of a job of that. And his best friend Rowley wants to be helpful since he’s caught up in it but he’s kind of indifferent to the whole thing. This only matters to Greg for reasons of greed and Rowley for reasons of torment. Nobody else really gives a f**k leaving you trying to figure out why Greg is so worried.

For direct-to-streaming the animation is absolutely fantastic. It’s better than it should’ve been for CGI animation. Absolutely fantastic looking stuff. It mimics the look of the books which is something live action cannot. The live action films looked rather generic while the emulation of the look of the books makes this unique. But that alone does not cover up the fact that our hero is a self-absorbed jerk.

There’s a snowstorm that traps everyone in their home which hinders Greg from getting the evidence that he tried to hide that is now in a very good spot to be found. And leading into the cabin fever element everybody begins to suffer from that since they can’t go anywhere since they’re all snowed in. The dad and mom go comically at each other’s throats when stuff starts disappearing and apparently the baby brother Manny is a hoarder and wanting to give a big middle finger to everybody. They cannot leave to get food so hunger is starting to mess with their minds and Manny could care less.

Yet they try to brush it all under the figurative rug by Greg apparently giving up his game system to the lady snowplow driver after running into her and hearing her sob story. He did the right thing, but it felt more like he was guilted into it rather than understanding the error of his ways. What is going on here?!

Any poorly handled lessons will mostly go over the heads of younger viewers in the first round. There is enough that looks good you or them can take superficial enjoyment from this movie. It looks good and goes down smooth.

Honestly though I think this got stretched out a little bit too long. I was entertained the whole time but for the simple moral of that we got there was a lot of fluff from Point A to Point B. Visually this movie is great but that fluff though. This seemed like 30-minute story with numerous tangents to justify a film.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever is entertaining enough. Not highly recommended but if you’re looking for some adequate family viewing this is a good choice.