The hit Broadway musical Annie gets a 21st-century update.
Left by her parents as a baby, Annie has a hard-knock life, living with a bunch of kids
and her mean foster mum, Miss Hannigan.
But all that changes after she quite literally bumps into billionaire Will Stacks, who�s
campaigning to be mayor of New York.
Stacks grabs an opportunity to increase his popularity with voters by spending time with
poor foster kid Annie.
Meanwhile, Annie gets to live the life of high-tech luxury.
As you�ll know if you watched my review of Into The Woods, I absolutely love musicals.
Unfortunately, only a few movie musicals get made today, unlike during their Hollywood
heyday in the 40s and 50s, so I really, really wanted to love this new Annie movie.
And I had high hopes for the film: after all, Quvenzhan� Wallis, who takes the lead, is
a supremely talented young actress, plus director and co-writer Will Gluck did a brilliant job
giving the 19th-century novel The Scarlet Letter a modern twist in Easy A.
So, did I love Annie? not so much, I�m really disappointed to say.
Ok, so why doesn�t it work?
Well, it certainly isn�t because of its young star Quvenzhan� Wallis, who, as I
said, is a fantastic young actress who I was blown away by in her first film, Beasts Of
The Southern Wild, where she gave a startlingly natural performance.
In fact, watching her on screen in that movie she brought to mind the first time I saw other
astonishingly instinctive young actresses like Akeelah & The Bee�s Keke Palmer, True
Grit�s Hailee Steinfeld, or Little Miss Sunshine�s Abigail Breslin.
Quvenzhan� hadn�t acted on screen before Beasts, but she�s naturally talented, has
loads of spirit about her, and the camera just loves her.
She even bagged an Oscar nomination for her turn and, at just nine years old, she was
the youngest ever nominee for Best Actress In A Leading Role!
So, after seeing her in that film in 2012, I could not wait to see what she did next
on the big screen.
And when it was announced she�d been cast as Annie, I thought, �you know what, I can
totally see her in that role.�
But I feel this movie lets her down as she�s constrained by material that doesn�t let
her ability shine through.
Unfortunately, this particular Annie movie feels like a musical that�s utterly embarrassed
to be a musical, or actually maybe it thinks it�s just way too cool to be a musical.
What we get is a lot nudging and winking at the audience about how crazy musicals are,
you know the way people just suddenly burst into song out of nowhere!
The thing is that these knowing digs at musicals don�t even make sense in the world of this
movie itself.
For example, when Bobby Cannavale�s scheming campaign advisor sings Easy Street to Cameron
Diaz�s Miss Hannigan in a club, she asks incredulously if he�s singing to her and
then turns to some people nearby and asks �is this really happening?�
But, hold on a minute, Miss Hannigan, you just burst into song yourself a few scenes
ago, and you also saw your foster kids do exactly the same thing!
Add to that the fact that the movie seems to be totally ambivalent about what it wants
to be.
So, it jumps between a peppy tale of an optimistic kid who opens up the heart of a work-obsessed
billionaire, and a knowing side-swipe at musicals in general and Annie in particular.
Let�s just say that the archness, the knowingness that worked so superbly in Easy A, which was
directed by Annie�s director and co-writer Will Gluck, does not play at all well here.
As for the movie�s songs, they�re not quite as you�ll remember them if you�ve
heard any of the previous versions of Annie.
Yes, you�ll still hear renditions of �Maybe�, �Tomorrow�, �It�s A Hard-Knock Life�,
�You're never fully dressed without a smile�, and many more, but they�ve been given a
modern touch � apparently to make them more edgy and gritty.
Though, to be honest, the music�s got about as much edge as a circle!
Aussie pop-star Sia along with the film�s director Will Gluck have changed some of the
lyrics and music.
I think it�s perfectly fine to update lyrics � after all, this movie�s set in the 21st
century unlike the original story, which was set during the 1930s, and some other aspects
of the story have changed too, for example, Annie�s now a foster child not an orphan,
so lyrics need to reflect all of that.
What I didn�t like was how they often drowned out the actors� singing with masses of drum
beats, to the point where you can�t appreciate their voices and the feeling they�re putting
into the songs.
I also didn�t like how the music�s been altered for many of the songs, to give what
the music team call �anthemic pop choruses�, but really it leaves the songs feeling more
anaemic than anthemic.
Likewise, the three new songs that are added aren�t particularly catchy or memorable,
and just slow down the movie.
Jay Z, who�s one of the movie�s producers, had a big hit with Hard Knock Life which sampled
the song from Annie.
And if the music was going to be updated, I�m not sure why he didn�t have a more
hands-on role in it.
Given the updated feel the musical was obviously going for, the song and dance routines feel
just that little bit too slick and stagey, and not raw enough.
In a musical, I wanna hear the actors sing with real emotion and real personality in
a way that reflects the role they�re playing and what their character is going through
at any given moment.
And if that means the singing or dancing isn�t hammered into perfection, I�m totally happy
with that.
What I don�t want in a musical is what a pop-star-style auto-tuned performance.
I�ve already talked about Quvenzhan�, but what about the rest of the cast?
Well, Annie�s got some great acting talent including Jamie Foxx and Rose Byrne.
Foxx is the only one of the principal cast with a musical background and that shows in
his mostly understated turn as Will Stacks, the billionaire mobile phone mogul whose life�s
turned around when Annie turns up.
Byrne manages to make her character, who VP of Stacks� company, feel likeable enough,
though her song-and-dance numbers felt kinda awkward and I wasn�t sure whether she was
definitely going for an English accent as her Australian roots kept coming through.
Cameron Diaz takes on the difficult task of playing Miss Hannigan, who in this version
is a sort-of washed-up wannabe pop star who takes in foster kids just to keep herself
financially afloat.
I say it�s a difficult task because Carol Burnett really made that role her own in the
80s movie with a fabulously OTT performance as the flirtatious booze-hound.
Even the brilliant Kathy Bates�s spin on Miss Hannigan in the late-90s TV movie of
Annie couldn�t hold a candle to Burnett�s deliciously mean turn.
As Diaz hams it up, you can see her trying to out-do Carol Burnett�s version of Miss
Hannigan, but she never gets anywhere near.
To sum up, Annie may have an all-star cast and a talented young lead, but its music is
way over-processed and the movie�s just too ashamed of being a musical, which is a
bit of a problem because it is a musical.
I'm giving Annie 2 out of 5 flicks.
What did you think of Annie?
What other musicals would you like to see given the big-screen treatment?
Let me know in the comments below!
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