Right from the get-go, I had huge doubts over this film thanks to the decision. Although there was some controversy surrounding the choice to change Annie's race to African American compared to the cute freckled red head little girl we all know & love, I didn't really mind, since well, that was the producer's choice & it is not a direct adaptation of the musical despite the songs, characters & basic plot...wait a minute! Anyway, there was some controversy thanks to the situation with the Sony hackers who ended up distributing digital copies of the film online to be pirated before it's release, although it has still made $110 million in the box office so far, so I guess it wasn't as big of a problem for Sony in terms of money! Produced by Will Smith & Jay-Z along with several others, can this version of Annie make me get fully dressed with a smile, or does this feel like a hard knock life? Well, as I mentioned above with what the film wants to be, I think it's clear my views are not very positive!
Anyway, I think judging that there, you can tell that the film is already problematic! Despite it trying to be it's own thing by changing the time setting, the fact that it's trying to be this & an adaptation of a beloved musical can make it very confusing with what it wants to be. Besides the basic outline of the plot & the characters, there is little resemblance to the original thanks to the main problem: the modernisation. It immediately gives the film a dated feeling & it doesn't help that everything they add in is forced, including memes, viral videos, the product placement (which I'll get to in a moment) & frequent use of today's social media & celebrities. The factor that they try to do callbacks to the
original show, including a girl at the very beginning who looks exactly like the original Annie also makes it feel very
very confusing. And the commentary of the original & is replaced with vapid materialism (including the girls going to a film premiere, Miss Hannigan wallowing in her own misery over not being famous & Annie seemingly being known by everyone in New York) although they also make a perplexing choice of poking
fun at product placement in films despite the movie doing that itself
not meant for comedy or parody, including Windows being frequently shown
in William's smarthouse, obvious tie-ins with Toblerone & Ferrero
Rocher at the movie premiere the characters attend & Twitter &
Instagram playing very huge roles in the climax. Speaking of the comedy by the way, none of it made me laugh thanks to the predictability & there is a number of adult jokes with Miss Hannigan being mistaken for a prostitute which felt pretty coarse & unnecessary despite it being a film mostly aimed at families.
Originally intended to be played by Willow Smith, I personally thought replacing her with Academy Award nominated Quvenzhane Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild was the much better option for the title role, as she does her best to give her character charisma & a personality despite the very cheesy dialogue & the completely different personality they give Annie, although one particular scene where it's needlessly revealed that Annie is illiterate did stand out for me in terms of her acting. William Stacks, played by Jamie Foxx, is also very charismatic throughout with his performance, as always, despite the character himself being the generic misanthropic workaholic with a tough background, although he has to do a number of embarrassing scenes including spitting mashed potato in a homeless man's face, or eating many of Annie's disgusting & sporadic recipes at his smart house. As for the villain of the piece Miss Hannigan, played by Cameron Diaz, I thought this was a huge casting mis-step with her acting feeling very forced throughout along with the awful autotuning on Little Girls & the decision for her to redeem herself by the end was very predictable (which was started when Will tells her Annie genuinely thought she had a good singing voice. Pretty weak & ironic reason, huh?). She doesn't even hold a candle compared to Carol Burnett & is definitely one of my choices for one of the worst casting choices ever in a movie. Since Hannigan's brother Rooster & girlfriend Lily are taken out of this for obvious reasons this time round, the other villain, Guy, William Stacks' played by Bobby Canavale is just a jerk Grace , played by Rose Byrne, while playing a motherly role towards Annie & the movie attempting to give her a quirky personality, can easily be qualified as the generic love interest towards Stacks due to their interactions despite the fact they have little to no chemistry. And Nash, played by Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje is pretty much the Punjab as Will's bodyguard despite not doing much for the plot besides being nice to Annie. And to give the film an even more dated feeling, they add in cameos all over the place with actors like Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Michael J. Fox along with singers Rihanna & Sia (who sings You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile which is now a background song during a montage & is admittedly catchy if you can ignore that it's a song from the original musical).
Other than the story & characters, the musical numbers also feel really watered down, mostly thanks to the modernisation of the orchestrations, the lazy choreography & the blatantly obvious autotuning, with the worst ones being Little Girls, I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here, Maybe & Easy Street (which is set in a bar & oddly edited with cutting between & Miss Hannigan hatching their little scheme & them salsa dancing to the song despite it not actually happening). Tomorrow is also placed oddly along with the visuals being rather bizarre & it's kinda sad Quvenzhane Wallis didn't get to show off her voice with it (it doesn't really help that the score has this & It's A Hard Knock Life all over the place as if those are the only songs people care about) To make things worse, they decided to add in original numbers by which serve absolutely no purpose, including the Golden Globe nominated Opportunity, despite being a kind of good song, still feels like it was added in to be a cliched Oscar bait song, The City's Yours (which I hardly remember despite Jamie Foxx's good singing voice sadly being autotuned) & Who Am I is just there to try & make Miss Hannigan's redemption feel more 'natural' & to try & confirm what we already knew with Will having feelings for Annie. And the oddest part about it all is that the film almost feels ashamed to be a musical since they always lampshade when cliched musical numbers would be in a negative light. Well, at least it seems the actors were having fun while doing the final number & I Don't Need Anything But You was fun, if not rather abrupt.
There is honestly no point for this movie to exist at all & mostly thanks to the modernisation. With that it strips away the purpose & themes of the original along with the heart & replaces it with vapid materialism, gimmicky & over the top cliches giving it a very dated feeling as a result. The musical numbers are ultimately forgettable & it feels very confused as to what it wants to be: a proper adaptation of Annie or be it's own movie. At roughly 2 hours long, the pacing makes it feel like an eternity & the attempts at emotional scenes or character development fall flat despite the mostly likeable cast due to the characters being reduced to stereotypes of themselves from the original. Even if you're a fan of Annie or Jamie Foxx, I'd say go & watch Dreamgirls or stick with the original 1982 film or even the 1999 Disney TV version despite it's flaws because at least it sticks to the purpose of the original along with the themes & commentary it wanted to get across!
Rating: **
