(poster courtesy of movie’s website)

I love the 1981 film “Annie,” and I even love its 1999 TV movie remake with Kathy Bates, so imagine my delight when Sony Pictures announced that they were planning a new remake of the classic with the ever-so-fabulous Quvenzhané Wallis in the title role. I was stoked. It was my #1 most anticipated movie of the 2014 holiday season, even butting out some of these recent Oscar favorites. The cast seemed perfect, the direction seemed good and the music seemed as good as ever. Sony Pictures has struggled with this release as a part of the infamous hack of their system in relation to the upcoming film “The Interview” resulted in “Annie” being illegally released online more than a month before its scheduled release. I wasn’t going to let this sway my theater experience, so why was I so heartbroken leaving my preview showing? Why did I feel this way? What went wrong?

It certainly wasn’t Miss Wallis as her part as the famous role of Annie is filled quite nicely. It’s nice to see a child actress with range in a role such as this since Annie does tread some dark territory near the end. Here comes problem No. 1: this version doesn’t do that, this version is watered down to kiddie material, by no means was the original explicit or scary. It just dealt with more issues that