Annie (2014)

Annie is a soulless film. Made with no heart or care, this is an easy movie to despise.

Will Gluck boringly directs, as the cast give equally stale performances. From oscar-winning actors like Jamie Foxx giving an uncharismatic, unlikeable performance as Will Stacks - the rich man who takes the titular orphan Annie in; to Cameron Diaz, who is just genuinely awful as Miss Hannigan, Annie's mean foster parent. Honestly terrible. A completely obnoxious OTT (and not in a good way) performance. Even the singing. She makes Pierce Brosnon in Mamma Mia look like bleeding Morrissey!

Even Quvenzhane Wallis, who was nominated for an Oscar for her incredible performance as Hushpuppie in Beasts of the Southern Wild, kind of sucks as Annie.

Any likeability of the original is sucked out of this remake by the shameful corporate involvement of the movie. How can a meta joke about one of the phones Stack's company produces is used as product placement in a fake movie they see within the film be funny when the actual film is littered with shameful product placement itself: Citi Bikes; Ferrero Rocher; Purell hand sanitizer; Toblerone; Windows 8; Skype; Twitter; Instagram - the list just keeps going.

How are you meant to understand the message when there's all of these money-making schemes boldly putting themselves front and centre!

Even the songs are total tripe. Now supposedly 'updated' by Jay-Z, they are lifeless pieces of garbage - terribly lip-synced by the actors with horrible use of auto-tune.

Verdict: A cold, soulless and painful film.