Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip (2025)

(SPOILERS AHEAD!)

Of all the live-action Disney films from the 2010s, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day was the last that I thought would ever get a sequel. Granted it was a hit at the box office, but I hadn’t heard anyone even mention the film in recent years, so I considered it to be forgotten.

How wrong I was as a sequel was planned in 2020 with Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip finally debuting on Disney+ in 2025! Directed by Marvis Lemus and written by Matt Lopez, the film serves as a stand-alone sequel to the original with a Latino family instead of a white family. For all practical purposes, you could call it a reboot and nobody would consider you wrong.

Whereas in the first film (and the original book by Judith Viorst), Alexander just has a really bad day, in this film, Alexander (played by Thom Nemer) is known to possess bad luck! Not only that, he’s apparently cursed with bad luck due to an idol his great-grandfather didn’t return.

Alexander goes on a road trip with his parents (played by Eva Longoria and Jesse Garcia), his elder sister (played by Paulina Chávez), and grandmother (played by Rose Portillo). His grandfather is played by the one and only Cheech Marin.

While Alexander’s parents are mostly doing the road trip to bond as a family, Alexander’s main goal is to return the idol back to his great-grandfather’s town in Mexico hoping that would end his bad luck. Along the way, they experience everything from a stowaway skunk to river shenanigans to three totaled vehicles!

I personally found the film to be more enjoyable than I expected and liked it more than the original. I liked the Mexican culture aspect of the film. And there were surprisingly many funny lines in this film I was even more surprised by how funny Eva Longoria could be! The acting overall didn’t wow me, with only Cheech Marin being as entertaining as expected. I felt that Thom Nemer tried his hardest, but his line delivery was better than his facial expressions. The others were okay at best, with the exception of Eva Longoria, like I mentioned earlier.

All in all, this film was not terrible, horrible, no good, or very bad!

So, my final score for this film is 26/35 = 74.29% (C) !

The next review will be posted on December 16, 2025.