‘Annie’ is a remake based on the 1982 film with the same name that was also based on the popular musical titled ‘Annie’, which was based on a 1924 comic ‘Little Orphan Annie’, created by Harold Gray.

 

‘Annie’ is and for most a musical, and while I love musicals which vary from ‘Pitch Perfect’, ‘Les Misérables’ and ‘Rock of Ages’, this new modern version of ‘Annie’ is anything but great.

 

The film is about a little orphan named Annie (Quvenzhané Wallis) who doesn’t know her true parents, but is looked after by her foster carer Miss Colleen Hannigan (Cameron Diaz), where she is joined by her friends who are at the same age as Annie, hoping for a loving couple to adopt them. But Annie runs into mischief when she is saved by a very wealthy entrepreneur and a politician named Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx).

 

The film has a really great cast, the problem is that most of the cast’s characters weren’t developed or connected throughout the movie. Quvenzhané Wallis did a good job as Annie and Rose Byrne was likeable and charming in her role. The other cast, while still great actors and performers, it was their characters that weren’t developed correctly, making the characters seem flat and very one-dimensional. Most of the adult characters were too goofy in their roles, with the exception of Byrne’s role.

 

The musical numbers were okay, and that’s the most important ingredient most needed in a musical film. Many people know these songs and while there are great songs like “It’s the Hard Knock Life”, the original song “Opportunity” and the iconic song “Tomorrow”, there are unfortunately some cringe worthy numbers like “Little Girls” and “The City’s Yours” (and if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll agree with me that this should have been background music instead, as the song felt out of the blue and out of placed in the film).

 

But, on a positive note “Maybe” is the film’s signature song as it provided the character Annie some backstory, but also giving her a goal to achieve, with that goal being to find her parents and it’s the only thing that is somewhat an emotional core to this film.

 

And don’t get me started on the narration problems this film has.

 

‘Annie’ is a somewhat enjoyable family movie, as it does have some great musical numbers and two characters that stand out from the movie that were somewhat developed, with the film’s first half-hour enjoyable, the rest of the film is a different story as it felt overlong (2 hours is the runtime), unspectacular writing and characters that feel one-dimensional.

 

I wanted to enjoy ‘Annie’, but unfortunately it isn’t spectacular or memorable.

 

Score: 2.9/10

Published: December 27th, 2014