Originally, the strip was a vehicle for its Republican creator Harold Gray’s support of the free market; the Broadway musical Annie and its 1982 movie adaptation turned this on its head, having Annie and billionaire Daddy Warbucks pal around with Democratic hero Franklin Roosevelt.

This update offers yet another spin. Annie, traditionally a redhead with freckles, is portrayed as African-American; Will Smith, one of the producers, planned that his daughter Willow would star. That didn’t work out, but the film still feels like a philanthropic endeavour from Smith and his fellow producer Jay-Z: a no-expense-spared entertainment specifically for black families, with a positive, uplifting message.

And why not? On balance, this Annie is an improvement over its predecessor. 

Will Gluck (Friends with Benefits) is more appropriate, and in his hands the shift to a 21st-century setting comes off with reasonable success.

Annie is played by Quvenzhane Wallis, the breakout star of the independent hit Beasts of the Southern Wild; her drunken overseer, Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz), has been changed from an orphanage keeper to a foster mother. 

As for Daddy Warbucks, he’s now William Stacks (Jamie Foxx) a mobile phone entrepreneur with the slightly sinister ability to run surveillance on anyone in New York.

The mix of irony and sentiment is typical of Gluck, whose specialities include snappy banter, allusions to social media, and equivocation. 

Musically the film is a compromise: all the songs have been given modern arrangements and some rewritten entirely, but the ones people remember - which is to say, Tomorrow and It’s the Hard Knock Life - are largely intact.

The numbers are treated as montage sequences rather than occasions for elaborate choreography, while much of the singing - Wallis’ in particular - relies on Auto-Tune to the point where vocal personality disappears. 

All the same, Wallis successfully carries the film, emerging as a full-fledged child star in the Temple tradition: spunky and precocious, with a smile that won’t quit.

As for the adults, Diaz is broad and predictable, not a patch on Carol Burnett in 1982.

Foxx gives the most interesting performance: despite the spoofy tone, he plays Stacks as a serious man quite aware of the sacrifices he’s made to reach the top. The character is all smooth yet sharp lines.

Annie (PG) is now showing at Bendigo Cinemas. See page 3 of the Bendigo Advertiser for session times.