Annie (2014)

As is always the case when a remake is announced, there was a lot of criticism before this movie saw the light of day. The standard reactions like “You should not touch a classic”, “Hollywood can’t create anything original” etcetera could be read everywhere. Those were understandable, but you really can’t say anything about the quality of a movie until you have seen it. I’ll have to admit that I’ve only seen parts of the original, so the story was mostly new to me. Does Annie, starring Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild, 12 Years a Slave), successfully manage to inject the movie with a new energy that makes it refreshing?

Annie is an orphan who is searching for her parents. Together with other girls she lives in an apartment owned by Hannigan (Cameron Diaz), who only has decided to “take care” of the children because it means a nice weekly paycheck for her. When Annie chases a dog through the street she meets Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), a successful businessman who is campaigning to become mayor of New York. His campaign manager Guy (Bobby Cannavale) sees in Annie an opportunity to improve the image of Stacks and win the election. Will Stacks, who only thinks about his company, start caring enough about Annie?

The music from the original movie has become timeless. This new version remixes a couple of those songs to give it a modern feel and will surely be liked by a big audience. Quvenzhané Wallis is pretty good as Annie, giving her the charm that wins over anyone that meets her. Jamie Foxx balances his character between businessman and someone who slowly discovers himself because of Annie. Cameron Diaz really disappoints here and her charicature never convinces. The tone of the movie is cheerful and doesn’t really have any huge drama managing to get the hearts of the viewers beating more quickly. The whole movie simply feels too “slick” for its own good. It is a safe remake which doesn’t set itself apart from other kids fare. This results in an unnecessary remake. Still I think that younger audiences will be swept away by the charm of the actors and music and will still be able to enjoy it.