Ramona and Beezus

Based on the book series by Beverly Cleary, Ramona and Beezus focuses on Ramona Quimby, an eccentric, free-thinking 9-year-old who can’t help but royally screw everything up. Throughout the course of the film, she manages to nearly burn down her parents’ house, almost wreck her aunt’s love life and even kill her damn cat. (Well, her cat dies of old age, but I’m relatively certain being pulled and prodded by the annoying little runt didn’t help.) The movie has a couple of decent laughs, but its saccharine, “Aw, shucks,” approach to life would have even Steven Spielberg puking up sugar and rainbows. While this is miles better than the similarly themed Diary of a Wimpy Kid, it’s still nothing to write home about, and the choice to cast tween star Selena Gomez as Beezus is baffling.