Remember the legendary story of the young orphan girl with the big red hair’she carried a dog along with her wherever she went and lived happily ever after when the richest man in town adopted her. That special heart warming film was Annie. The film, Annie was made in 1982 and originally was a young Caucasian girl who played the role. But with the year 2015 shortly emerging, and as society slowly but surely is beginning to accept change, a new modern Annie came into theatres!
The new movie Annie, is slightly different from the original, its taken place in a modern day world with booming technology, there’s a twist on the plot, and did I mention that the red hair is not the only thing that looks different from the hard knock life star? The new film stars a young, black, Annie. The remake had a few familiar faces with notable actors such as Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz and the main character Quvenzhane’ Wallis. The actors weren’t the only familiar faces, the producers included Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jay Z and Primetime Emmy winner executive producer, Celia D.
Costas just to name a few. Will Gluck was the director of the film who also contributed to write the movie as well. The movie takes place in Brooklyn New York where 10 yr. Annie lives with her bitter caretaker Ms. Hannigan in a foster home along with other foster children. Ms. Hannigan is an alcoholic who is upset about her fallen career as a singer in her past, she watches Annie along with the other foster kids to make money. Billionaire Will Stacks is running for mayor in New York City and saves Annie from being hit by a car.
Stacks gets so much media attention from this, that his advisor Guy, thinks that the billionaire should invite her over for lunch and take a few pictures with her to make him look good. While Annie was there, she suggest that Stacks should become her temporary guardian and says she’ll put on a good show for him and she persuades that it will help his image and Stacks agrees. Grace, Stacks assistant grows to love Annie and mentions how she doesn’t have any friends. In the movie you notice that Stacks and Grace are both lonely in the very big penthouse that he lives in, but Annie seems to keep them both company and brings them together.
Annie begins to spend a lot of quality bonding time with Stacks as they travel in his helicopter, he takes her to her first movie premier, and she attempts to make him meals in the kitchen that don’t turn out as delicious as she thinks. Later, Grace and Stacks takes Annie to an important speech and Annie gives a heartwarming speech about Mr. Stacks. When its time for her to read the teleprompter she runs away, and Stacks and Grace discovers that Annie is illiterate. Stacks grows such a bond with her that he decides to adopt her.
Stacks advisor Guy, thinks that he’s becoming to attached to Annie so he meets up with Ms. Hannigan and tries to come up with a plan to find Annie’s parents, and offers her a monetary reward. Guy finds two actors to play as Annie’s parents and even has a fake DNA test, Stacks who is questionable about the two imposters signs the papers to release Annie to her new parents. When Annie gets in the car, she realizes they are not her real parents and starts begging for help in the car window, she is also hurt when the two fakes say that this was Stacks idea, making her believe he didn’t care about her.
The children who see Annie tweets pictures of her and posts all over the internet and this gets back to Stacks and Grace very quickly. Ms. Hannigan has a change of heart and brings the foster kids along with her to confirm to Stacks and Grace that Annie is in danger from the fraud parents. Stacks sends out a helicopter chase and police become involved in the incident and Annie was recued. To prove that the billionaire truly does love Annie, he resigns from running for mayor. Mr. Stacks adopts Annie and shows his admiration for Grace by asking her out for dinner.
In the end he opens up a Literary Center for young children inspired by Annie. The plot was very easy to follow and was similar to the original film, besides that this production was more modern, a few scenes from the movie are different such as Stacks meeting Annie for the first time by saving her life. The message that was perceived in the movie was no matter what you go through in life, you should always have a positive mind set and have the hope and perseverance to keep moving forward no matter how many obstacles may come your way.
The message from this movie was quite inspiring and I think it provides hope for many young children and even adults who are watching the film. All of the tough challenges that Annie went through were hard and I’m sure there are a plethora of children and adults who cannot still maintain the optimistic attitude that Annie had. She continued to carry a smile on her face and I believe that’s something that we can all learn from. There was a Broadway musical style that the movie definitely portrayed.
The movie included singing, dance routines, and fabulous costumes such as in the movie premier scene the girls dressed up in colorful outfits. The style of this movie reminded me of a Broadway play because singing, dancing, and flashy costumes are all elements of Broadway. The visual elements of the film were realistic in a way. I thought that the streets of Brooklyn New York appeared to look like the streets of New York, however since this is a children’s movie, it did have a lighter vibe to it.
It didn’t look as rough as some people explain Brooklyn to look like such as the streets not being as dirty and the people appeared to be friendlier. For an example, Annie asked to borrow a woman’s bike who was a complete stranger to her and offered to bring it back, the young lady smiled and agreed, something like this would rarely happen on the streets of New York. Now I am not a New York native but I have visited the city quite a few times and the people are not as friendly as they were in this movie.
However, since the target audience is children, I understand why they would want to water down how the actual streets of New York really are. The movie did hold my attention because it was intriguing and had a spin from the original movie. I liked how Ms. Hannigan has a change of heart and decided to tell Mr. Stacks that those weren’t her real parents unlike the original Annie; Annie was so witty throughout the movie it was alarming that she couldn’t read, so there were a few twists on this movie that was different from the original which held my interest.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I thought it wasn’t going to be as good as it was so in my opinion the trailers didn’t serve the movie any justice! I may be a little biased because in my opinion its hard to beat a classic so I give the writers credit for tackling a legendary film, I believe that you cant remake a classic. But for a remake of the film, I think they did as good of a job that they could’ve done. It wasn’t better than the original but it’s not a movie that I wouldn’t mind seeing again. I enjoyed it.
