Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day (2014)

IMDb plot summary: Alexander's day begins with gum stuck in his hair, followed by more calamities. However, he finds little sympathy from his family and begins to wonder if bad things only happen to him.

Directed by Miguel Arteta. Starring Steve Carell, Jennifer Garner, and Ed Oxenbould.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day is a full length children's feature film based extremely loosely on the picture book of the same name. To expand this story out to an hour and a half, we tell the story of how Alexander is having struggles and is irritated with his family's optimism, so he makes a birthday wish that they all have terrible days. Then the whole family has a terrible day, and he has to be the one to be optimistic for them. I just watched a string of pretty decent kids films that were entertaining even if clearly not made for me. This is not one of those. This one is for kids and only for kids. The jokes are juvenile and the relationships are unrelatable for adults. It does have a nice message about balancing positivity with acknowledging that sometimes things are just difficult, and that's a good message to send to children. But it's absolutely not made with anyone beyond its target audience in mind and never really reaches beyond that. So since I'm not a child and do not have children, all I can say is it's not for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day < The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day < Goldfinger

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day > Cocktail

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day > The Blue Dahlia

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day < Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day < The Westing Game

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day < Toys

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day < Robots

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day > Life With Father

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day < Predator

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day > X-Men: The Last Stand

Final spot: #3115 out of 3846, or 19%.