Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
There's a surprising amount of bite: the filmmakers openly acknowledge the similarities between the Great Depression and the present, and the populist message, however overstated, always registers as sincere.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Think you've got a hard-knock life? Try sitting through the new "Annie."

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
Considering this musical has its roots in Depression-era American, Gluck's contemporary take on the material is eerily lacking in observations about the rich/poor divide in this country.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"[A] disenchantment, even misanthropy, seeps through Will Gluck's reinterpretation of the Broadway classic."

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Annie" is not a great movie musical - but it's a fun time at the movies.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
This "Annie" was supposed to be for a new generation. In the harsh light of 2014, it's never looked so dated.

Name : Linda Holmes / Alias : NPR
Despite any reservations about the music, it is a charming, lovely little movie.

Name : Maricar Estrella / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Phenom Quvenzhane Wallis proves her Oscar nomination for Beasts of the Southern Wild was no fluke. As a modern-day Annie, Wallis shines with her sweet portrayal. However, her performance alone can't save the film from being a dim adaptation.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
This is an Annie for adults, only now the spin is less "Remember the social-welfare lessons of the Great Depression?" and more "Hey, rich people are nice, too."

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Where to begin in describing the awfulness of "Annie"?

Name : Michael Ordona / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Annie" is a shiny little pebble with nothing close to a surprise in it, set in a New York that would cause Martin Scorsese to burst into flame if he walked into it. And young kids just might like it.

Name : Elizabeth Weitzman / Alias : New York Daily News
For all the talent involved, the overall effect is surprisingly flat. Foxx appears disconnected, Byrne is wasted and a painfully hammy Diaz seems to be in another movie altogether.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The overall vibe of this folly is curdled and utterly blase; it's a 118-minute foregone conclusion, finesse-free and perilously low on the simple performance pleasures we look for in any musical, of any period.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Wallis is adorable, but there's little magic in the new music or the barely-there choreography. A missed opportunity.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Banal, shallow and markedly cynical.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Hard to believe the sun will come out tomorrow for the new "Annie."

Name : Christine Dolen / Alias : Miami Herald
The new Annie is jam-packed with Glee-style choreography and greed-is-good luxury. Like its predecessors, it's a fantasy. But unlike them, it's not so much heartwarming as warmed-over.

Name : Mary Houlihan / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Even Sandy the dog looks like he's had enough.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : Time Out New York
Annie deserves credit for illustrating that old racial prejudices don't have to be preserved by new entertainments, but this remixed rendition doesn't speak to the kids of today so much as it does to their parents' wallets.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
The vigorous display of good feelings and comforting resolutions has an unusually effervescent sincerity, even if the rags-to-riches wish-fulfillment leaps over all the hard knocks.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
By the end, the movie resembles just another formulaic, family-friendly piece of product, one the kids will enjoy and you'll endure as it goes in the DVD player for the 40th time.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
Ultimately, "Annie" is so fixated on being current that it will never be more than a passing fancy.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The sun'll come out tomorrow, by which time this toxic mess should be forgotten.

Name : Nancy Churnin / Alias : Dallas Morning News
Most of the cast can't sing or dance, and Gluck, who co-wrote the screenplay, has no clue why this story has endured.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Musical purists should stay away, but little girls should have fun here, and the movie's full of goofball touches that help pass the time for the grown-ups bringing them.

Name : Kerry Lengel / Alias : Arizona Republic
The feel-good story and sing-along production numbers are likely to please the movie's target audience of tween girls, but there's not a whole lot in "Annie" to win their parents over.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Did I really just watch Foxx and Wallis do an entire musical number set inside a moving helicopter? I did, and I've never felt more embarrassed for two actors, mostly because Foxx seems embarrassed for himself.

Name : Neal Justin / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
There's still a good film to be made of "Annie," but it'll take Broadway veterans, not box-office stars, to pull it off.

Name : Ronnie Scheib / Alias : Variety
While there are several possible good reasons to remake the Depression-set musical "Annie" in 2014, none of them seem to have informed Will Gluck's overblown yet undernourished treatment.

Name : Jason Clark / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Aside from an unintentional homage to Zoolander that is so tone-deaf it'll make you guffaw, Annie goes out of its way to make viewing it a hard-knock life.for us.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Quvenzhane Wallis, the Oscar-nominated star of the trippy bayou indie Beasts of the Southern Wild, simply has to skip into a room - and into the frame - to light things up.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
In all the ways that matter it's a missed opportunity to take a flawed musical and transform it into a powerful new myth with a particular African-American slant.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
It falls ignominiously on its fat one. The Sony hackers, the so-called Guardians of Peace, have leaked the new Annie online so everyone can have free access. It's their cruelest trick to date.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Leapin' lizards! The evergreen Broadway musical "Annie'' strays far from its Depression-era roots with truly dismaying results in this crass, charmless, tineared and lead-footed update.

Name : Katie Rife / Alias : AV Club
Any scene without Wallis and her gang of remarkably symmetrical, well-groomed orphans feels like a chore-"Let's just get through this," the movie seems to be saying, "Then we'll show you that cute little girl and her puppy again."

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Most remakes are unnecessary but Annie is a bigger offender than many.

Name : Courtney Shea / Alias : Globe and Mail
Engaging characters, infectious melodies, suspense, drama and dance extravaganzas appeal to children of all eras. If only the powers that be behind the new Annie movie had kept this basic truth in mind.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
The cast would have been better served by a middle school production overseen by a creatively frustrated, inappropriately ambitious drama teacher than by this hacky, borderline-incompetent production .

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
A movie that coasts on a disturbing greed-is-good vibe. And one that looks strangely cheap doing it.

Name : Richard Corliss / Alias : TIME Magazine
A teeter-totter between O.K. and Meh.