Posts Tagged ‘Cameron Diaz’

Annie

Director: Will Gluck

Cast: Quvenzhané Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale, David Zayer, Cameron Diaz, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

The 21^st century film version of the hit Broadway musical Annie is no match for the 1982 cinematic treatment of the musical by director John Huston. In the 2014 version, director Will Gluck has chosen to rather focus too much on making it a contemporary New York tale and less of a classy musical.

Although that does not distract from the onscreen sparkle of the lead actress Quvenzhané Wallis, who embraces the role and become famous for being one of the youngest performers to ever be nominated for an Oscar for Beasts of the Southern Wild. The updated version of Daddy Warbucks, is a cellphone billionaire Will Stacks, wonderfully and almost gleefully played by Oscar winner Jamie Foxx who embellishes the role with humour and charisma.

The supporting cast is equally good including the rising actor Bobby Cannavale as Stack’s scheming publicity driven press officer Guy and his real life wife Rose Byrne who is brilliant as Grace. The casting of the film was diverse and brilliantly done with the exception of Cameron Diaz as Miss Hannigan, whose performance was jarring and questionably overplayed.

Audiences should expect all the wonderful songs of the Broadway musical with a more edgy tunes thrown in along with every available social media innovation that has beset American urban life in the last ten years including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram woven into an increasingly frenetic social narrative.

This Annie is no down and out orphan in Depression era America, but a rising vivacious star in a 21^st century post-recession America, emphasizing that the gap between the rich and the poor has widened considerably in the last eighty years.

Excluding any social commentary, the 2014 Annie is a great feel good film and director Gluck makes fill use of the Big Apple as his primary location especially the spectacular scenes at the Guggenheim Museum, the Brooklyn Bridge and stunning aerial shots of the New York skyline.

If audiences are expecting a polished and flawless musical such as Into The Woods, then Annie is not for them. Will Gluck’s Annie is a much thinner, at times disjointed  and very light hearted version which comes off slightly messier as the rags to riches storyline gets updated from its original 1930’s period setting to appeal to a the millennial generation.

Whilst the effort can be applauded and the production design including Stacks’s smart internet connected New York penthouse is a must-see, this Annie remains a tamer version of the 1982 classic film. Definitely suitable for children and those that want to avoid a hard knock life!

The Green Hornet

Masked Heroes in a Sleek Ride

The Green Hornet a subversive and explosive tale of a Media Mogul’s son Britt Reid who becomes a crime fighter in contemporary Los Angeles twists the usual superhero and sidekick relationship in a script treatment by comedian Seth Rogen, who also shed 18 kilos to play the titular role.

With a pastiche of car gadgets inspired by all the James Bond films from Goldfinger to Goldeneye, Rogen’s portrayal of an anti-superhero does not quite live up to the success of Robert Downey Jnr’s Iron Man franchise, which featured a terrific plot, superb casting and the right balance of action and anticipation.

The Green Hornet is too brash, badly paced and filled with unnecessary explosions, car chases and destruction overshadowing a storyline which if the cameo appearances by stronger actors  like James Franco and Tom Wilkinson had been given more screen time, allowing a counterpoint to Rogen’s obsession with his new found superhero status as The Green Hornet and his perplexing relationship with his sidekick, a Chinese martial arts motor mechanic Kato played by Jay Chao.

Whilst The Green Hornet, based on a radio series pokes fun at pop culture and the American obsession with superheroes, the media business and the increasing fascination with wealth and consumerism, the film fails to rise above its popcorn matinee status.

The international cast makes for a confusing motley crue of characters from Chinese star Jay Chou and Austrian Oscar Winner Christoph Waltz, fresh from his Nazi hunting role in Inglourious Basterds, playing the villian Bloodnofsky to Cameron Diaz who clearly portrays the anguish of an actress caught in the wrong film, with a crazy leading man.

The Green Hornet is saved by some clever dialogue by Rogen who also serves as scriptwriter but lacks the solidly plausible storyline of more impressive superhero films from Batman Begins to the Spiderman films. Then who ever said plausibility was required in any tale of a superhero?

As brilliant superhero films go, The Green Hornet dazzles with explosive action scenes but remains a rowdy, comical romp well below par of similar films in this saturated genre.