Synopsis
Annie is a young, happy foster kid who's also tough enough to make her way on the streets of New York in 2014. Originally left by her parents as a baby with the promise that they'd be back for her someday, it's been a hard knock life ever since with her mean foster mom Miss Hannigan. But everything's about to change when the hard-nosed tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks—advised by his brilliant VP and his shrewd and scheming campaign advisor—makes a thinly-veiled campaign move and takes her in. Stacks believes he's her guardian angel, but Annie's self-assured nature and bright, sun-will-come-out-tomorrow outlook on life just might mean it's the other way around.
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Cast
- Quvenzhané WallisAnnie Bennett
- Jamie FoxxWilliam "Will" Stacks
- Rose ByrneGrace Farell
- Cameron DiazMiss Colleen Hannigan
- Bobby CannavaleGuy
- Adewale Akinnuoye-AgbajeNash
- David ZayasLou
- Amanda TroyaPepper
- Zoe CollettiTessie
- Nicolette PieriniMia
Recommendations
- 63
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Even with all this sparkle, the film staggers through its third act. By then, the script has rubbed the rough edges off the villains and made whatever point it was going to make several times over. - 50
TheWrap
No amount of self-referential jokes can make up for a lack of heart and spirit. Thankfully, Annie lacks neither. - 50
Austin Chronicle
Little girls will love it. I used to be a little girl once, too. I didn’t care much for the Top 40 glossy coat slathered over every song, but this heart will never harden to a spunky kid who’s certain the sun’ll come out tomorrow. - 40
New Orleans Times-Picayune
Unfortunately, the longer this Annie goes on, the more steam it loses. - 40
Time Out
Perhaps the most hypercurrent thing about Gluck’s film is how it espouses the value of family while actually celebrating products as the only true form of modern connection. - 40
Village Voice
It presumes that children care a great deal about cellphone towers, political campaigns, and Twitter. Still, Quvenzhané Wallis, as Annie, is raw, charismatic, alive, and unpredictable. - 30
Variety
The film replaces choreography with metronomic editing, while one-note overstatement drowns out character development. - 25
Entertainment Weekly
Aside from an unintentional homage to "Zoolander" that is so tone-deaf it'll make you guffaw, Annie goes out of its way to make viewing it a hard-knock life...for us.
