Director: John Huston
Starring: Aileen Quinn, Albert Finney, Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters, Tim Curry
Running Time: 128 minutes
Certificate: U
Extras: Sing-Along with Annie!, My Hollywood Adventure With Aileen Quinn, Musical Performance By Play: “It’s a Hard-Knock Life”, Original Trailers And TV Spots, UV Digital Copy.
Musicals can be funny things. More often than not they’re as entertaining as a fire in an orphanage, but some are well written and highly watchable. ANNIE is one such example and features, coincidentally, an orphanage (thankfully not on fire).
ANNIE tells the tale of a young girl escaping an orphanage and going to live with a millionaire. That’s about the sum of the the plot but it has plenty going for it with a fantastic cast (particularly Carol Burnett and Albert Finney), an extremely competent director in the legendary John Huston, and some fantastic songs (Hard Knock Life’s a real belter). It does have the same issue as most films featuring kids – horrendously annoying, precocious and sickly sweet infants – but it manages to overcome this hurdle in much the same way as the musical OLIVER! did with the afore mentioned excellent direction, great performances, and bloody good songs. ANNIE also features Baron Samedi from LIVE AND LET DIE as Albert Finney’s bodyguard – Bad-ass, eh? – and the Blu-Ray transfer is a real upgrade if you own the DVD featuring greatly improved picture and sound.
Anyone expecting me to kick seven bells out of ANNIE, I’m Sorry, but if you are as dopey about musicals as me you will find plenty to enjoy. After all, ‘You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile’ are you?
Extras: A reasonable package though I’m not too enthused about the sing-along with Annie and would rather a ‘flay your own skin along with Annie’, but I guess I’m not the target audience.
ANNIE is available on Blu-ray now
