Annie

Well, it's a remake and we all know how much they tend to suck. So I didn't get my hopes up going into this. Ultimately I found myself liking parts I didn't expect to like and hating parts I thought the movie would get right. The hated would, of course, be the music. The wonderful songs from the original musical have been raped here, updated to reflect today's soulless music market. Everything is drowned in overproduction and all that auto tune synth beat crap. I'm searching for an analogy for this travesty but the closest I think of is when a perfectly attractive and youthful actress starts butchering herself with plastic surgery and Botox. There was nothing wrong with the songs as they were and they should have been left alone. The few new songs here are wretched. I watched with my girlfriend and every time we were enjoying the movie a damn song would start and we would both groan loudly.

The cast and the way they interacted with one another was the best part. I enjoyed Jamie Foxx a lot, which always surprises me as I never know what to expect from him. His channeling R. Kelly in the musical numbers was a little cheesy, though. Quvenzhané Wallis is hit or miss for me. I liked her but the forced smile throughout the movie felt a bit like mugging. Bobby Cannavale, Rose Byrne, and David Zayas are all good. Cameron Diaz was over the top and not in a fun way. The script is not impressive but there were some nice bits of humor throughout and (mostly) likable characters. The fake movie "Moonquake Lake" they went to see was the highlight of the film. Also, for a movie dripping with anti-capitalist rhetoric and (laughable) comparisons between the present and the Great Depression, it sure is very materialistic and shallow.