Annie (2014) / YMMV

Awesome Music: People have admitted that some of the pop renditions of the songs are absolute bops:
- “It’s A Hard Knock Life”, with its aggressive brass hits.
- Cameron Diaz’s rendition of “Little Girls” has its fair share of fans who find it catchier than the original with its more fast paced rhythm, and also like the Creepy Awesome vibe, with the girls giggling along to the music and Miss Hannigan sounding like she’s going crazy.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Compared to the other musical numbers, the film's rendition of "Easy Street" has very little build-up and ends just as abruptly. Even Miss Hannigan is befuddled by it.
Critical Dissonance: Viewers seem to be more accepting of this film than most movie critics. There's a noticeable difference between the critic and audience numbers for the film on Rotten Tomatoes: 28% for critics, 59% for audiences.
Ensemble Dark Horse: It seems the only character everyone likes in this film is Grace Farrell. The fact that she's played by Rose Byrne has something to do with it.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Although the movie bombed in the United States, it was a huge success in Japan, opening at #1 on its first weekend, knocking Big Hero 6 from the top spot and remained in the top 3 for a month. It was also the best-selling motion picture soundtrack on the Japanese Amazon website for a while, not counting anime or Japanese productions.
Jerkass Woobie: Miss Hannigan gets this much more than any other version. Even though she's nasty towards everyone, she's very stressed out with her job and doesn't know what to do. She becomes a straight-up woobie once she realizes that Guy is trying to kidnap Annie, especially when she sings the song, "Who Am I?".
Memetic Mutation: Taking the new version of "It's a Hard Knock Life" and setting it to characters from other series getting hurt is decently popular.
Narm: While walking home and singing "Tomorrow", Annie has a number of Imagine Spots of other pedestrians having fun with their kids while they're really doing mundane tasks. One man who appears to be tossing his toddler up and down is revealed to be doing this with a bucket of water for some reason.
Older Than They Think:
- A lot of people complain about Sandy the dog being changed into an Akita. Sandy in the original Little Orphan Annie comics is almost always a large, orange or reddish-brown dog with pointed ears and a white muzzle. The new dog is more true to the source than the Otterhound Sandy from the 80s film.
- This isn't the first modern version of Annie—the comic had spent much of its last two decades abandoning its Unintentional Period Piece trappings before it ended.
Padding: The film adds a minor subplot revealing that Annie Never Learned to Read, and a notable chunk of the film after this point focuses on Stacks trying to help her learn. This plotline has no genuine effect on the film's story or characters outside of extending the runtime, and is not mentioned again after it's resolved.
Questionable Casting: Even the film's supporters agree that Cameron Diaz was miscast as Miss Hannigan. The attempts to make her unattractive fall desperately flat, and her actual performance is not nearly as intimidating or entertaining as her more iconic predecessors, with many of Diaz's lines being delivered without much enthusiasm or charisma. In particular, her rendition of "Little Girls" was seen by many as a significant step down from the other incarnations.^note
The Scrappy: Even people who find the movie okay can't stand Will Stacks. He's basically the film's version of Daddy Warbucks if you take away all of his sympathetic moments and Jerk with a Heart of Gold traits. This version finds the touch of other people disgusting, his campaign for New York is mostly a giant ego-trip, his cellphone network invades the privacy of everyone in the city, he spends most of the movie not even attempting to show affection for Annie making it hard to get invested in their relationship, and is responsible for multiple unfunny spit-take gags. Not even his sympathetic backstory is enough to win fans over to him. Also, he vomits on a homeless person.
Squick: This unchanged line from "I Don't Need Anything But You": We're tyin' a knot / they never can sever The expression "tying the knot" is usually a slang term for getting married. It was kind of accepted in the Depression era and thereabouts that a man needed a woman to take care of him and his house — and if not his wife, it would have to be his daughter. In the present day context of an unmarried adult male adopting a girl child, the context gets kind of creepy. Good thing Grace turns out to also be the Love Interest, or it would be even creepier.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The majority of negative reviews the film got from critics seemed to be complaints about the below... even though many of these were also complaints about the original.
- It was updated from Depression era to modern day, which many claim is ditching any of the economic commentary that the original show included (while others say it makes that commentary more relevant).
- Annie is brought into Stacks' life as a political ploy (even though the original used the little girl in a similar fashion — to make Warbucks look kindhearted and bring him good publicity).
- Nobody belts the songs at the top of their voice like in the '82 version. This one is somewhat merited — the singing is weak in places, and AutoTuned in others.
- They got rid of Punjab the Indian servant in favor of Nash the bodyguard. Again, adding Punjab to the original film was a criticism back in the eighties; he wasn't in the stage version (he was a Canon Immigrant from the comic) and was an Ethnic Scrappy many found annoying.
- They added the topical plot point that Annie Never Learned to Read.
- It's materialistic. Hannigan wanted a rich life she thinks she was cheated out of; she wallows in nostalgia and uses foster girls as apparent sole source of income. Whilst Stacks worked his way up from either poverty or lower middle class, so he earned his smart house.
- Oliver Warbucks's and Rooster Hannigan's names are changed.
- The film adds a Running Gag where Hannigan constantly questions why the other characters are breaking into song. Many critics accused this of indicating that the filmmakers were embarrassed to be making a musical and added these lines to represent their own thoughts.
The Woobie:
- Annie, herself, is this. She's a foster child who wanted to find her real parents, which she never does. Then just as she's starting to develop a great relationship with William Stacks, she's reunited with her real parents. Turns out that they weren't and she ends up getting kidnapped instead.
- William Stacks becomes this as the film progresses. At first, he only takes care of Annie to help him become the mayor of New York City. But over time, he warms up and starts to care for her and doesn't want her to leave.
- Miss Hannigan starts off as a Jerkass Woobie, but then becomes this after finding out what Guy plans on doing to Annie. She feels regret for her actions, questions who she really is, and tries to atone for her actions by saving Annie.

YMMV / Annie (2014)

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