This film is not recommended.

Annie, Will Gluck's musical film, and I am using that term loosely, is wrong-headed in concept and execution. After two vain attempts to film the successful Broadway hit, this latest version sucks all the life and last glimmers of hope that was so evident in the original production. Updated to present-day NYC, this new updated version Whereas, the Broadway musical had buckets of charm, a great score sung by talented performers that stressed comedy, and a book that clung to the nostalgic memories of the twenties, this debacle has anti-charm, alters the score with synthesized percussion and bombastic orchestrations, distorts songs so poorly crooned by non-singers (with the sole exception of Mr. Foxx who has some vocal talents and rhythm),and a dumbed-down script that resorts to food-spitting as high comedy (at least three times). It's just awful.

The screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna and the director never finds the right footing. In this Annie, our plucky heroine is not an orphan, but a foster child in search of her parents. She is still living with the self-absorbed Miss Hannigan, now a wash-up singer from the 90's pop group, C +C Music Factory. Daddy Warbucks becomes Will Stacks, a germaphobic businessman running for mayor. They meet and Annie becomes his photo opportunity until his heart is melted by this young ragamuffin. The film uses the original source as an outline, losing all the clever repartee and creating new dialog that is contemporary sounding for all the worse reasons. (Example: When looking for the dog, Sandy, to adopt, Stacks says to Annie: "Don't pick that one! It's licking its own who-ha." Moments of this sophistication just can't express my total displeasure with this film adaptation.)

Gluck's heavy-handed direction is everywhere. No one can escape it. The director can't stage a scene with any musical flair. The dancing is sloppy, the singing merely adequate, and the acting settles into non-stop mugging. The wondrous score from Charlie Strouse and Martin Charnin is as diluted as the filmmakers. Many of the musical numbers are throwaway moments and never build to anything resembling entertainment. (Only one song, It's a Hard- Knock Life, at least, has some energy and fun.)

Quvenzhané Wallis plays the title role and she does look cute enough to play Annie, but she has a limited vocal range and comes off as saccharine and insincere. The aforementioned Mr. Foxx has some style, but is given little to do except look grumpy and bothered until he transforms, due to his love for the little tyke, into a lovesick sap. As Stack's helpful crew, Rose Bryne is wasted and Bobby Cannavale is an embarrassment of riches. Coming off worse of all is Cameron Diaz playing Miss Hannigan. It would be unfair to compare her performance to the legendary Dorothy Loudon. Let's just say Ms. Diaz is just loud and leave it at that. (That she plays this beloved villain as cruel and seriously hateful only shows her misinterpretation of the role and serious miscasting of the part of Mr. Gluck.) Sadly, this film is one-stop- shopping to find these actors' worst performance in their careers.

The film has the New York vibe, but it seems to be in its own alternate universe, gritty but not too gritty, real, but not too real. The production design by Marcia Hinds is dreadful (Stacks' penthouse looks like a modern architecture horror inspired by George Jetson.),the costumes by Renee Ehrlich Kalfus are unflattering and do little to endear the characters, and the cinematography by Michael Grady is bland at best.

Perhaps, I should stop here, looking toward a better tomorrow when the sun will come up once again. But this feel-good movie just made me feel all so bad. So, I will end with this warning: Taking your family to see this film is a form of child abuse. This Annie deserves to be alone. GRADE: D

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Regarding the other versions of the classic Broadway hit, the 1982 film was one of my favourite films as a child and is still a personal favourite today while the 1999 film is also good and entertaining if a little short and sugary sweet in places. Annie(2014) certainly should be judged on its own merits and without any comparison as well as with an open mind. Seeing it without any prejudice, I do not think it is quite as bad as people has said but as an updating of the story and as a standalone it didn't work.

There are some good things here. The best thing about it is Quvenzhané Wallis as Annie, her singing is not brilliant but the energy, enthusiasm and feeling she gives to it is. She's consistently winning in the role and performs with much confidence and charisma with twinkling eyes and a bright smile, all this without falling into saccharine camp. Jamie Foxx has the best singing voice of the whole cast and is a likable Will Stacks, playing him with real authority and charm, coming across as appropriately over-serious to someone more relaxed later on. Sandy is also adorable and almost on par with the dog in the 1982 film, and I was charmed by the chemistry between Annie and Grace.

Unfortunately that's it for the things that work. The girls playing the other foster kids try their best but they do come over as over-eager and they don't have much to do, not to do with screen-time but with how they're directed(the only place they shine in some way is Hard Knock Life). Rose Byrne is a mixed bag, she is appropriately kindly and shares a charming chemistry with Wallis but she has very little to do really. Bobby Cannavale underplays the villain role so much that the performance comes across as one-note while Cameron Diaz is rather painful to watch as Miss Hannigan(and this is without any comparison). She's a talented actress but plays the character far too broadly, so over-the-top campy and obnoxiously strident that it makes the rest of the toned-down performances dull in comparison. Regarding the singing, the only one who impresses is Foxx, the rest of the adults can barely carry a tune and the singing in general sounds auto-tuned and in an all-too-obvious way(Easy Street is especially bad in this instance),"auto-tuned disaster" sums it up very aptly. The lip-synching is incredibly amateurish too with the performers' mouths moving at a different tine to the music.

The songs in the Broadway stage show and the 1982 and 1999 films are marvellous, ones with very catchy melodies that are easily hummable and lyrics that you can recite without problem very quickly. The songs that are included here are arranged in a way to make them more "current" but instead they are stripped of their heart and meaning due to the many things added to and taken away from them, some of them changed to the extent they're barely recognisable(like one or two signature lines a song being maintained but the melodies being completely swamped by polyrhythmic harmonies and sounds and even vastly inferior changes in lyrics). Tomorrow just about gets by but Hard Knock Life irritates and Easy Street is completely butchered. And then we have the added ones done especially for this film and while they're "current" they're forgettable at best and largely uninspired in style and writing with lyrics so inane it's enough to make one cringe. For anybody yet to see the film they'd think that there'd be a jarring difference in quality with the original songs and the added ones but you know something is horribly wrong when the originals are changed so much that they're actually on the same level in quality to the added ones, that's how much they've been cheapened by the arrangements. The choreography is both sloppy and chaotic, flailing arms being the most memorable and frequent movement of the lot, and apart from Foxx and to a lesser extent Wallis nobody looks natural dancing it. For example I Think I'm Gonna Like it Here looked like it was completely made up on the spot.

The equally chaotic and music-video-like production values don't help, most of the musical numbers especially Easy Street were very haphazardly edited, and neither does Will Gluck's leaden direction that has inexperience stamped all over it. The script is weak, with crass humour, cloying cutesiness and the once memorable and engaging characters reduced to bland clichés. The film does try hard to make the famous story relevant by today's standards, but by doing that the heart of the original story is lost and Annie's positivity amidst a harsh world doesn't resonate, which is really what the story and Annie's character is all about. Annie and Stacks's relationship never really grows, despite Foxx's best efforts if there was meant to be a character change for Stacks it wasn't believable while Miss Hannigan's back story suffered from some really clumsy and badly placed writing. The message is more cynical in alternative to heart-warming, handling the benefits of materialism idea very heavy-handedly, while the climatic helicopter chase is just ludicrous, completely devoid of tension and completely out of place compared to the rest of the film.

Overall, Annie(2014) is not THAT terrible but while it tries hard the execution for this viewer was awkward and sloppy. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Precocious Annie B (Quvenzhané Wallis) searches for her parents every Friday at a local restaurant who left leaving a note. Her foster mom is the bitter drunk has-been singer Colleen Hannigan (Cameron Diaz). Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx) is a telecommunication mogul. He's not the touchy feely kind. He doesn't connect with the poor and running behind for mayor. Grace (Rose Byrne) is his assistant and Guy (Bobby Cannavale) is his campaign adviser. While rescuing a dog from a couple of bullies, Annie is almost run over and she's rescued by Stacks. The incident becomes a media sensation and she moves in with him.

I really like the start with the Orphan Annie fake out. Quvenzhané Wallis is cute enough although I don't think she's that precocious or that great of a singer. Hannigan is not that bad of a foster mom aside from the drinking. They live in a nice house. She's more self-destructive than anything else. Jamie Foxx struggles to be a cold-hearted millionaire. It's a tough balancing act to be lovable enough and not mean-spirited even as he is trying to be cold and mean. He doesn't have much chemistry with Rose Byrne. The new songs are overproduced and lacking in heart. The old song are catchy but it feels like karaoke. It's not good but it's not completely horrible. It's a dream come true for materialistic little girls but not much fun for most others. There are some fun references like the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller fish Twilight movie-inside-the-movie. However, there are not enough smart references and not enough real heart. The movie gets more and more boring as it fades.