Leapin’ lizards! The evergreen Broadway musical “Annie’’ strays far from its Depression-era roots with truly dismaying results in this crass, charmless, tin-eared and lead-footed update. The worst Hollywood musical so far this century, it’s another misstep for Sony Pictures, which also sponsored the abortive ‘‘The Interview.’’
Minus her trademark red hair and no longer technically an orphan, this still-spunky 21st-century Annie (Quvenzhané Wallis) was abandoned as a baby in a Greenwich Village restaurant. Her latest of many homes is a Harlem apartment where mean Miss Hanniga💖n (Cameron Diaz), a failed pop diva, keeps Annie and three other foster children busy tidying up while they all live on the $157 a week she collects for each of them.
This film’s version of “Daddy” Warbucks is called Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), a billionaire cellphone magnate who is running for mayor for no apparent reason other than that the plot calls for it. He is so cold, uncomfortable with the public and germophobic that he goes viral on YouTube after spitting out mashed potatoes he is supposed t𝔍o be serving to a homeless man. When Will saves Annie from being run over by a car, his unctuous campaign manager, Guy (Bobby Cannavale), sees an opportunity for his candidate to catch up in the polls to incumbent Mayor Harold Gray (Peter Van Wagner, as a character who is barely seen even though he shares a name with the cartoonist who created Annie in 1924).
Annie is delighted when Will invites her to come share his luxe penthouse (filꦏmed at the 4 World Trade Center office tower) — and for the next hour, the film drops all pretense of a plot and turns into heavy-duty real estate porn, accompanied by hideously percussion-heavy arrangements (with tweaked music and lyrics) of the original Broadway songs by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin.
As in the original, Hannigan — this time in cahoots with Guy (her brꦜother Rooster has disappeared) ꧋— eventually tries to cash in by producing a couple who pose as Annie’s “real” parents. But they’re no match for Will, who has grown to love Annie, as well as his “vice president,” Grace (Rose Byrne), who still acts like a secretary despite the title.
Ther𒊎e’s no FDR in this version — except for a tok🅰en mention in the opening scene — and Annie’s famous dog Sandy barely figures in the action, but there is a very awkwardly staged climactic helicopter ride to Jersey City, where NYPD patrol cars mysteriously show up.
John Huston’s 1982 “Annie’’ isn’t great, but at least it had a young star (Aileen Quinn) who could dance and sing with authority. The charismatic Wallis, who received an Oscar nod for the gritty indie “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” barely passes muster in either category💟. The other girls in “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” dance rings around her, and it seems downright cruel to require Wallis to perform with a 25-piece orchestra at the Guggenheim Museum in one o🌊f many pointless scenes.
Foxx hasn’t seemed so utterly disinterested in a role since his last major musical, “Dreamgirls” (2006) — and Byrne, while perky, is certainly no thre𓆉꧂at to Ann Reinking (Grace in ’82) in the dancing department.
But the real lump of coal in this threadbare Christmas stocking is Diaz, who is at her scenery-swallowing worst as Hannigan — outdoing e♑ven Carol Burnett’s ghastly performance from 32 years ago. Cover your ears during her duet with Cannavale, who, unlike Diaz, can actually sing.
Director Will Gluck did a fine job with “Easy A’’ and “Friends With Benefits,’’ but this much larger production ⛦— produced by Will Smith and an assortment of friends (like Jay Z) — is one runaway tra🌳in wreck of an “Annie’’ remake. Here’s one “Tomorrow’’ when the sun never does come out.