Review of Annie (2014) by Sara C — 22 Aug 2015

I pity the people who saw this instead of Into the Woods. I pity those who actually thought this was better than Into the Woods. Most of all, I pity myself for watching this. I would warn y'all about spoilers in this review, but it isn't worth it.

Let's start with the songs. Interestingly enough, there are additions to the old classics, and they aren't that great. Actually, they're kind of bad. And so are the new renditions of the classics. I thought the original screen adaptation was pretty decent, but this is just a shameless mockery of what made the old Annie good. The high-pitched nasally kid voice singing can't really be helped, however adding heavy drum beats makes this movie way too upbeat for what it's really supposed to be about. What made the original Annie good was that the songs were touching, only some being happy. The songs in this remake made me want to groove and cringe at the same time. In addition to the cringe-y singing is the choreographed dancing the kids do while at the orphanage, oops, I mean foster home. It didn't look bad, it just felt really out of place and weird. Speaking of, the kid actors were pretty stiff and awkward with their lines, even Annie herself. Some of the time I could've sworn she had just gotten the script and was speaking it for the first time, but the camera just happened to catch it and the director was like "Cut! That's good, next part!" Some parts had me straight up confused because the characters would behave one way and then say a line that was completely out of character. Daddy Warbucks' assistant person, I mean, Mr. Stacks' assistant Grace is supposed to be really fond of Annie when they meet and do things together (before Mr. Stacks lets her temporarily stay with him), and when they are deciding on whether Mr. Stacks will take her in she says something like "Are you really considering this?" It's like all of a sudden she doesn't want Annie to come with them. It doesn't fit anywhere and is completely out of character, and then for the rest of the movie she is Annie's BFF. On a side note, there was a pretty funny movie Mr. Stacks took Annie and her gal pals to see. It reminded me that there are terrible movies that are meant to be terrible which made them good that I could be watching, but instead I was watching this.

I'll point out that this movie did have some good points. It is kind of clever how they brought Annie to a modern time, though I'd have preferred the songs not be modernized into crap. Some jokes were actually funny, and some performances were decent in this. Unfortunately, that doesn't save it from being bad.