Saturday, January 23, 2021

Movie Review: "Annie" 11/07/99

 This is a movie review for "Annie", released in 1999. I watched this back in March 2020.



Well.... This is awkward. IMDB.com doesn't even have a page for this movie. :-/ I have searched and searched and they don't have it at all. Wait.... 

They call it an "episode" of a series made by Disney - "The Wonderful World of Disney" series? Wow.... Okay, not really true but whatever.


Here's the IMDB link for "Annie". This premiered on ABC on November 7, 1999, per Wikipedia.



Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama

Run Time: 1 Hour and 30 Minutes



Official MPAA Rating (According to IMDB.com):

G / General Audiences

PG / Parental Guidance Suggested

PG-13 / Parents Strongly Cautioned

R / Restricted

X

Not Rated





Trailer






Notable Cast


Kathy Bates ... Miss Agatha Hannigan

Victor Garber ... Oliver Warbucks

Alan Cumming ... Daniel Francis "Rooster" Hannigan

Audra McDonald ... Grace Farrell

Kristin Chenoweth ... Lily St. Regis

Alicia Morton ... Annie Bennett




Plot


An orphaned girl named Annie lives at a orphanage for girls. She doesn't like it there so tries to leave as often as she can. After almost making it out on the street, she is brought back to the orphanage and is lucky to have the chance to be a guest at a billionaire's house for Christmas. Both the billionaire Mr. Warbucks and the orphan Annie see their lives change from the encounter, but Annie insists that she is looking/waiting for her parents that left her at the orphanage when she was an infant. Can they find Annie's real parents? Where will her "forever home" be?




Rating Criteria

0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.

1/5 – Barely worth any time.

2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.

3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.

4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.

5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.


4/5 - *SPOILERS*

I honestly liked the 1982 movie "Annie" better because that was the one that I was accustomed to when I was growing up. They did a good remake of the movie (but Tim Curry did a better Rooster, for sure, and Carol Burnett's Ms. Hannigan was better too). However, even though there had been the 1982 movie out, this 1999 movie was decent.

Victor Garber shone through the Mr. Warbucks character. Audra McDonald was a good Grace, though she didn't quite have as much spunk as the 1982 version had. I did, however, think it was interesting to watch Kathy Bates (our dear Annie Wilkes from "Misery") losing her mind because of the children, though Carol Burnett's Ms. Hannigan was more believable. [I admit, they probably tried to make it less noticeable that Ms. Hannigan was drinking in the 1999 movie but still....]

1982 "Annie" with Carol Burnett: "Little Girls":





1999 "Annie" with Kathy Bates: "Little Girls":



Anyways, Ms. Hannigan's brother Rooster and his girlfriend Lily decide to take the second half of Annie's pendant (the one that she swears will help her know who her family is) and go try to fraudulently take Annie away from Mr. Warbucks as they are "her parents". Lily accidentally spills the plan to the other orphans, whom then go to tell on them to Annie and Mr. Warbucks. Ms. Hannigan, Rooster and Lily are all arrested for the fraud they tried to commit. President Roosevelt appears and lets Annie know that her what her parents names were and that they died years ago. Mr. Warbucks finalizes the adoption process and Annie stays with Mr. Warbucks as his new daughter.


One thing I didn't like is the fact that Annie didn't have that big of a connection with the President in this version like she did in the 1982 version. So when the President pops up at the end to tell her how he had the FBI research into her background to find her parents, I was like "....but what?". It was nice to see how they did that, and made it less violent/scary than the ending of the 1982 version (because Rooster was trying to get rid of her in that version), but still made me pause and go "how does that work out".



Anyways, if you don't have the bias of the 1982 version in your mind (like I always will have), it would be a great movie to watch. As a stand-alone movie, I rate this a 4/5.

However, if you are comparing this one to the 1982 version, stick to the 1982 version, in my opinion, because it just feels better overall. True, they might show Ms. Hannigan drunk and Rooster trying to kill Annie at the end, but I think that the 1982 movie was better made. That's just my opinion.


What do you think of this movie? Do you agree with my opinions? Give me your thoughts!




That's my movie review. Thank you for reading. More reviews to come eventually.


~ Gracie Mae DeLunac



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