Annie

I saw Annie and it was fantastic! I know how some people say NOT to remake a classic, but Annie is the exception. I did not like the Karate Kid remake, but Annie 2014 gets an A+ from me!! Quvenzhané Wallis did a wonderful job in the lead role of Annie. You really feel for her character and care what happens to her. The musical numbers were great. I actually liked Jamie Foxx's character Will Stacks and I am NOT a Jamie Foxx fan. But I feel that he was meant to play the role with his background in singing, dancing, and acting. Cameron Diaz took her "Bad Teacher" character up a few notches and created a diabolical villain!! She is so mean, nasty, and heartless. It was special to see how the characters progressed throughout the film and at the end. People can change! The soundtrack has an Urban NY flavor to it that I love!! I'm going to buy the CD or DL it ASAP!! Not fair to compare 2014 to 1982 as the times are extremely different now as opposed to then. But if I had to choose 1982 or 2014. I'd definitely go with 2014!! It is a shame if racism is lowering the rating of Annie 2014. Critics can criticize this version of Annie, but it had a lot of HEART.

Annie is an age old story of an orphan struggling to survive and is magically swept off her feet by a reluctant grouch who suddenly gets a warm heart and yadda yadda yadda. Yes, an updated version of Annie sounded awesome and yes, some of us had hope for it. And HELL NO is this what Annie should have become. This is perhaps one of the most ridiculous, over produced, annoyingly unoriginal remakes in recent years. With a cast like this film, starring Jamie Foxx, Quvenzhane Wallis, Cameron Diaz and Rose Byrne, this should have been a very competent film but it is so bogged down with a ridiculous hip-hop shroud of the musical numbers and poorly executed dance numbers that it is hard to take this seriously. The biggest culprit is Will Gluck, the man directs this with absolutely no flavor. It isn't hard to make the story of Annie heart warming, not in the very least. It is one of the best told stories along with being one of the best musicals of all time. Even if you were asleep at the wheel for most of the production, you could still get something out of it. Gluck fails to do pretty much everything when it comes to direction. It is lazy and unoriginal. To be frank, the only reason why I'm giving this a 3 instead of a 10 is Wallis' performance. She was truly awesome as Annie and it is a shame that the film wasn't even a fraction as good as her performance. Overall, this is a film that will more than likely have you pounding your fist against your head for the entire duration of the film...oh yeah, it is THAT bad.

"Annie" is a modern day retelling of the acclaimed Broadway Musical and 1982 musical film based on the show, which was based on the 1924 Comic Strip "Little Orphan Annie" which in the original show and movie, takes part during the Great Depression, telling the story of Orphan Annie - a pre-teenage hoping for a return of her parents, who disappeared after they left her on the steps of of an orphanage as a baby. In this version, which again takes place in the modern day, it is revealed in the early part of the film that Annie, played by Quvenzhané Wallis (Academy Award Nominee for the "Beasts of Southern Wild") was left as a baby at a restaurant by her parents, and is now a foster kid, under the care of Miss Hannigan, played by Cameron Diaz. The Billionaire character "Daddy Warbucks" of the classic story, has been replaced by the character of "Will Stacks", played by Jamie Foxx (Academy Award winner for "Ray"), who is also a Billionaire from his cell phone business, and is running for Mayor of New York City. So – leading up to this film, the predicted expectations were of gloom and doom, presumably I think because this version does not take place in the original time line, and because some people's now negative views (not mine) towards Actor/Rapper Will Smith, who co-produced the film with among others, his wife, Actress Jada Pinkett Smith, and Rapper and Business Mogel Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, whose sampled one of the Musical's more populars songs "It's a Hard Knocked Life" in his hit song "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)". So what did I think – While I admit – the movie does became a mess to a great deal, it is not a total mess, and could have been a lot worse. A lot of songs that many of us love are there and performed well by the cast, some with variations, some of which are understandably, and some which may have probably weren't necessary. There are some new songs as well, including the very touching "Who am I?" - sung by Diaz, Foxx and Wallis's characters in the later part of the film. Some of the modern day jokes, just some of the humor in general works well, and some falls flat. Kids should like this version of "Annie" just fine. Adults - I think most who are fans of the original are going to be annoyed by it. I myself am I fan of the Broadway show and 1982 Movie. While I obviously didn't love this version myself, again, While it does become a mess to a great deal,it's not a complete one. My rating is for the music, and some of the humor – 2 ½ out of 4 Stars (The ½ star is for the previously mentioned new song "Who am I?").

Can't believe the negative reviews! This was fun, modern, funny and entertaining. Good for kids and adults and there's a great cast too. Don't let the reviews put you off.

Regarding the other versions of the classic Broadway hit, the 1982 film was one of my favourite films as a child and is still a personal favourite today while the 1999 film is also good and entertaining if a little short and sugary sweet in places. Annie(2014) certainly should be judged on its own merits and without any comparison as well as with an open mind. Seeing it without any prejudice, I do not think it is quite as bad as people has said but as an updating of the story and as a standalone it didn't work.

There are some good things here. The best thing about it is Quvenzhané Wallis as Annie, her singing is not brilliant but the energy, enthusiasm and feeling she gives to it is. She's consistently winning in the role and performs with much confidence and charisma with twinkling eyes and a bright smile, all this without falling into saccharine camp. Jamie Foxx has the best singing voice of the whole cast and is a likable Will Stacks, playing him with real authority and charm, coming across as appropriately over-serious to someone more relaxed later on. Sandy is also adorable and almost on par with the dog in the 1982 film, and I was charmed by the chemistry between Annie and Grace.

Unfortunately that's it for the things that work. The girls playing the other foster kids try their best but they do come over as over-eager and they don't have much to do, not to do with screen-time but with how they're directed(the only place they shine in some way is Hard Knock Life). Rose Byrne is a mixed bag, she is appropriately kindly and shares a charming chemistry with Wallis but she has very little to do really. Bobby Cannavale underplays the villain role so much that the performance comes across as one-note while Cameron Diaz is rather painful to watch as Miss Hannigan(and this is without any comparison). She's a talented actress but plays the character far too broadly, so over-the-top campy and obnoxiously strident that it makes the rest of the toned-down performances dull in comparison. Regarding the singing, the only one who impresses is Foxx, the rest of the adults can barely carry a tune and the singing in general sounds auto-tuned and in an all-too-obvious way(Easy Street is especially bad in this instance), "auto-tuned disaster" sums it up very aptly. The lip-synching is incredibly amateurish too with the performers' mouths moving at a different tine to the music.

The songs in the Broadway stage show and the 1982 and 1999 films are marvellous, ones with very catchy melodies that are easily hummable and lyrics that you can recite without problem very quickly. The songs that are included here are arranged in a way to make them more "current" but instead they are stripped of their heart and meaning due to the many things added to and taken away from them, some of them changed to the extent they're barely recognisable(like one or two signature lines a song being maintained but the melodies being completely swamped by polyrhythmic harmonies and sounds and even vastly inferior changes in lyrics). Tomorrow just about gets by but Hard Knock Life irritates and Easy Street is completely butchered. And then we have the added ones done especially for this film and while they're "current" they're forgettable at best and largely uninspired in style and writing with lyrics so inane it's enough to make one cringe. For anybody yet to see the film they'd think that there'd be a jarring difference in quality with the original songs and the added ones but you know something is horribly wrong when the originals are changed so much that they're actually on the same level in quality to the added ones, that's how much they've been cheapened by the arrangements. The choreography is both sloppy and chaotic, flailing arms being the most memorable and frequent movement of the lot, and apart from Foxx and to a lesser extent Wallis nobody looks natural dancing it. For example I Think I'm Gonna Like it Here looked like it was completely made up on the spot.

The equally chaotic and music-video-like production values don't help, most of the musical numbers especially Easy Street were very haphazardly edited, and neither does Will Gluck's leaden direction that has inexperience stamped all over it. The script is weak, with crass humour, cloying cutesiness and the once memorable and engaging characters reduced to bland clichés. The film does try hard to make the famous story relevant by today's standards, but by doing that the heart of the original story is lost and Annie's positivity amidst a harsh world doesn't resonate, which is really what the story and Annie's character is all about. Annie and Stacks's relationship never really grows, despite Foxx's best efforts if there was meant to be a character change for Stacks it wasn't believable while Miss Hannigan's back story suffered from some really clumsy and badly placed writing. The message is more cynical in alternative to heart-warming, handling the benefits of materialism idea very heavy-handedly, while the climatic helicopter chase is just ludicrous, completely devoid of tension and completely out of place compared to the rest of the film.

Overall, Annie(2014) is not THAT terrible but while it tries hard the execution for this viewer was awkward and sloppy. 4/10 Bethany Cox