Film Review: ‘Annie’ remake
Director: Will Gluck
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Quvenzhané Wallis, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale, Cameron Diaz
Age Restriction: PG
Genre: Musical, Family
Runtime: 118 minutes
Release date: 30 January 2015
Annie ventures into the 21st century in this modern remake of the well-known Broadway musical hit and comic-strip.
The plot follows the adventures of a little orphan girl named Annie (Quvenzhané Wallis) who lives at a foster home run by the antagonistic Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) and dreams of finding her parents and getting out of the foster home.
One day, Annie gets that opportunity when the wealthy Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx) asks her to move in with him in a bid to get good publicity for his mayoral campaign. As Stacks gets to know Annie, he begins to care for the little orphan as she teaches him that there’s more to life than work and wanting to get to the top.
Before the film’s release, there was a ton of buzz surrounding it as it’s a remake to one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all-time which spawned a successful film in 1982 and an Emmy nominated 1999 made-for-TV film. Yes, Annie is a franchise beloved by both children and adults alike.
Sadly, the latest version of Annie plays it too safe as the filmmakers made an average pop-corn flick mainly catered towards children only.
The film is filled with clichés and is missing that emotion and long-lasting effect that made the other films before it exceptional and still beloved today. In other words, the new Annie film is a forgettable piece of cinema that will only be remembered by children.
On a more positive note however, the film still entertains, but only on mediocre levels sadly. What works really well for the film is the whole modern vibe which adds a bit of originality. The music has also slightly been modernised, but thankfully it still retains its original tunes which will leave fans pleased.
The Annie remake boasts a talented cast with Wallis’ charming performance as the title character a major highlight of the film. But probably the biggest surprise of them all is the chemistry between Wallis and Rose Byrne who plays Stacks’ personal assistant Grace. Like most of her films Byrne gives off an amazing bubbly performance and proves to us that she can in fact sing.
Now to the stinkers, Jamie Foxx disappoints as his performance felt forced and was downright pretentious. Diaz on the other hand was a complete waste of talent as the film’s screenplay gave her nothing to work with leaving her performance an over-the-top mess. As talented as Diaz is, you could see that she actually tried, but the screenplays’ thin characterisation of Miss Hannigan held the actress back which is a shame as she’s pretty good at playing a villain hence her performances in Bad Teacher and The Counsellor.
It’s made apparent that Diaz can’t actually sing as her vocals made my ears bleed which leads me to question why the filmmakers decided to cast her in the first place.
All in all, the latest reincarnation of Annie is an average attempt by Sony to make money which in turn throws away the magic of what made the past adventures instant classics.
