There is so much wrong with this film that the list could go on forever, and the only reason it didn't get a one star is because there were a handful of moments which actually made me inward laugh, but I suppose we should start this review with a run down of the plot.
Greg Heffley is back and in this adventure he is forced into a family road trip to visit their meema for her birthday. What could wrong? well a lot of things apparently. After Greg becomes a laughing stock when a meme of him with a diaper on his hand goes viral, he looks for a way to fix his soul crushing new name (diaper hands) by trying to get on video with videogame playing mega star Mac Digby, who is doing a game stream live from a videogame Convention which, luckily, is close to where his Meema lives! how about that. What follows is a series of events involving Greg getting into an altercation with a family of 'Beardos' as they end up being called, Rodrick being sick in a mans face, Manny's pet pig and an endless, and trust me it felt very VERY endless, array of crazy antics.
No matter how hard the film tries to make the antics that fall on the Heffley family as outrageous as they can, it just felt dull at times. I must admit there were some moments that made my chuckle inside, the scene with Greg in the Beardo's bathroom while he is have a massive crap is my kind of toilet humor (pun intended), but everything still drags on way to much, some joke are spread thinner than the last dregs of jam in the film jar. It was 10/15 minutes too long, if you condense it down, take out the final confrontation with the beardo family and cut a few scenes down here and there would make it better, but only by a smidge.
The film's major setback though is the change in actors, something which was inevitable due to the younger cast being too old to play the age group the books are set. But why the need to change all of them? The parents could of been kept the same, Alicia Silverstone has nothing on Rachel Harris, and the kid they got the play Rodrick (Charlie Wright) is possibly one of the worst actors I have ever seen, and I watch a hell of a lot of low budget horror films.
The Long Haul is a family film more aimed at the younger audience, and yeah fine this is a film based of a kids book, for kids, but there isn't an awful lot for the adults. The toilet humour makes it watchable, and the only decent actor is Jason Drucker who is playing the new Greg.
Fun for the kids, painful for the grown-ups.