Annie

This surprisingly-effective redo of the ’80s classic works largely because of the warm performances of it’s unlikely movie match, Jamie Foxx and Quvenzhané Wallis.

While not a shade on the classic ’80s original, and packed with way-too-many nods to the conveniences of our times (supposed they had to squeeze their product placement obligations in there somewhere), director Will Gluck (“Easy A”) manages to make something so torn and anachronistic play rather fresh.

An adorable foster kid (Wallis) finds an unlikely father in one of the richest men (Foxx) in New York. Because it will win him popularity, Annie is whisked away from her mean foster mum Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) by Will Stacks, a tidy, smart mobile-phone company owner who’s running for mayor. While he might have only taken Annie in to win points, it isn’t long before Stacks starts to grow very close to his new housemate.

Rose Byrne is delightful as Fox’s loyal assistant and potential love interest.

Kids will likely love the jazzed-up remixes of those classic “Annie” tunes more than us, the purist, and they’ll also probably overlook the cheesiness of the whole thing too, but there’s no denying “Annie” is a pleasurable, very tolerable watch.

DVD : Doesn’t pack as much in as the Blu-ray, but there’s still some fun featurettes and so on here.