REVIEW: James Patterson the famous critically acclaimed author of books such as Women’s Murder Club, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, and his most popular Alex Cross. He has written series of novels for various demographics from women, teenage girls, men, and also little kids being Middle School. After several Alex Cross films (including the terrible 2012 reboot starring Tyler Perry), it was only a matter of time another series of books Patterson wrote would become adapted into a feature film. As much everyone wanted a Maximum Ride movie (which you now have but most likely won’t see), CBS Films has decided to adapt another popular series of his that is Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life. I never read any of the books in the series because by the time it came out my Diary of a Wimpy Kid phase was concluding and I thought this a ripoff similar to Dork Diaries. But with the director of the first Paul Blart: Mall Cop and the writing duo of Masterminds (the film that tortured me earlier this week)? Really them? AGHH! I was gonna make a joke about how meh this movie will be but the writers of Masterminds? Oh boy we’re in for it now. Or are we?

THE GOOD: Nowadays we live in a world of YA adaptations where everything is over familiarized. We pay more attention to the demographic for teens than we do for tweens especially in the department in live action films. The last we had was Disney’s Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day which was released exactly at this time back in 2014. So with Middle School it is nice to have a distinctly crafted film that is sort of a breath of fresh air especially in we’re swallowed in films about dystopian futures and rebellion. There is a rebellion theme in this film but its one we can relate to. It may have moments where it feels like Wimpy Kid, but it takes much more risks and grab more into character depth than that series ever will.