Annie is a touching musical comedy drama centered around a foster kid; she is awesome and closely waiting for a day to meet her parents, she went through series of hard times but it all went well in the end.
The vigorous display of good feelings and comforting resolutions has an unusually effervescent sincerity, even if the rags-to-riches wish-fulfillment leaps over all the hard knocks.
After its sly opening--meta-jokes about the Annie we expect; a song-and-dance about class divides--the flick mostly gives us a cocky, fully-formed child, broadly shticked-out adults, a musical-ness that seems show-offy, and almost no political savvy.
The film makes it to three stars simply for a hilarious scene in which Stacks takes the kids to watch a movie, which is a most brilliant Twilight parody, called MoonQuake Lake.
Every time it seems that Hollywood may finally be winding down with their producing of endless unnecessary remakes, a movie like Annie comes along to remind us just how creatively bankrupt the mainstream movie industry remains.
Considering this musical has its roots in Depression-era American, Gluck's contemporary take on the material is eerily lacking in observations about the rich/poor divide in this country.
There's nothing wrong with reworking the score of Annie -- as this film does -- but too often, the movie seems a little embarrassed to be a musical at all, making it seem as if it's having a crisis of confidence.
