The Thunderbirds

source: The Thunderbirds

I took my family to this movie not sure what to expect. I grew up loving the puppet show and have fond memories of playing International Rescue as a kid. As an adult I still dig the puppet show (sorry -ahem- "Supermarionation") and wasn't really sure that live action could possibly compete with the classic! Well, I was pleasantly surprised. While far from perfect, the movie was definitely a good look, and had much to recommend it. The CGI were great, the set design and look of the movie was great. Lady Penelope was wonderful and Parker did not disappoint. The only real disappointment for me was "Brains". Anthony Edwards was way miscast. Came off as a second rate Christopher Lloyd clone a la Back to the Future. And Fermat was an unexplained and unnecessary addition to this 'prequel'. I definitely do not think this movie deserved the unanimous savaging it received from the US critics. I put it down to culture clash. Having no prior exposure to the Thunderbirds stories, I think that they just didn't 'get' the movie, in much the same way that most of us outside the US do not 'get' baseball movies.

OK I admit it I'm a lifelong TBirds fan. The first episode screened when I was three and a half and I've been hooked ever since. I don't think the producers and director of this film were, the spirit isn't there. Thunderbirds is a fantastic franchise potential, in that there is very little evil in the show.I know there's the hood but he doesn't always appear, the only constant is peoples lives being saved in tense and action packed ways that require kid friendly super- machines. How can you lose. Hardly any killing or swearing and gritty action. The original was made for kids in as much as it was puppets but all The Century 21 series would have used live action if Gerry Anderson and ITC could have afforded it and the stories did not talk down to or patronise their audience with the result I can still happily watch them today with my little girl. This is the kind of kids film that used to go down well at the ABC minors when mum went shopping. It doesn't have as much of the dual adult and kids appeal of the original and will probably appeal mostly to the younger children who (if they can get you to take 'em, it's a PG) aren't really going to mind the poor humour, and won't remember what Thunderbird 2 should look like or that Lady P wouldn't be seen dead in a Ford. Or that the original Tracy family were too smart to ever all go on the same rescue at once and therefore fall into traps. The casting is mixed really. Jeff looks far too young to be a father of five and the hood is good old English Ben Kingsley! when he obviously should have been Burt Kwok with his head shaved. TinTin is just too "american teen" with non of the asian dignity and reserve needed for her future life of looking after the ailing Kirano and the Tracy boys blend a little but then I used to get Alan and Gordon confused originally and there will never be an actor with Shane Rimmers voice and Scott Tracy's looks outside of Kirk Douglas and sadly he's had his day for action parts. The Action is however pretty good. Except for the monorail, which for some reason looks more like a model than anything Derek Meddings ever did on the telly, the thunderbirds do pay reasonable lipservice to the original designs and there is still enough here to cling to the hope that it could be rescued by a sequel with a better plot, brains Jr and TinTin sent off to University and Allan doing a decent days work for a decent days pay.

Once upon a time young children sat down with their Fathers or maybe their bigger siblings and they watched a show. It was a television program that held them transfixed with tales of bravura and technological wonders. Lots of young children dreamed beautiful creative dreams because of this show. Fast forward to Christmas 2004. Lots of kids are gonna get a DVD called "Thunderbirds". The producers of this movie should get used to the singular "clang" sound because I can imagine lots of kids are going to toss this into wastebaskets the day after (or maybe the same day). They are throwing away the most thickheaded attempt at re-creating television greatness that this reviewer has ever seen. I am not saying that the original "The Thunderbirds" was the best of shows. It was a puppet show for chrissake! It had huge limitations based on what we know today. But then? If you were a seven to fourteen year old kid? The Thunderbirds was it! Jeff Tracey led and his sons followed, spirited and eager. Scott was the eldest and Jeff's "rock". He had Thunderbird 1….reconnaissance and remote command and control platform . Virgil had the looks but was so committed to Dad and the project. He had Thunderbird 2……the perennial heavy duty workhorse. Gordon, John and Alan had the tough job of being expert in all the rest of the equipment….all heroes. And then there was Brains. An unparalleled engineering genius and our little secret. As much a part of the team as any other single member. As much flawed and quirky as he was amazing and lovable. Brains was not perfect, but he was the best Mother Earth had to offer. But the true beauty of this old show, the reason all of us got up at 6.00am to watch, was those wonderful beasts, the Thunderbirds themselves. Gerry Anderson knew that his creations were the star of the show and he made sure they were kept front and center. So, with this movie, what the hell where the producers thinking? Whoever was in charge, and I am not saying it was the Jonathan Frakes, had simply no idea. Obviously they had no idea that they were playing with an institution as opposed to a "cool plot idea". The whole movie was two things…….a Spy Kids clone and a running advertisement for Ford……..and that's it! OK, the technical stuff was there. I thought the updating of our beloved Thunderbirds was quite good to a point. And Tracey Island seemed up to it. Had all the right stuff, except we never saw it work right. After that? It was all downhill into the pits. And it went pretty low. The script wasn't written, it was excreted. The casting was abysmal. The costuming was third rate. As a Father, I would be embarrassed if my son said this was a cool film. It would mean I would have to explain to him why it isn't. He is gonna see the original series one day so I have to. Whoever the mastermind is that concocted this mess should go away. To the producers that still own the rights? Give it another shot. People want to see the Tracey's solving problems as they do. Make my kids proud. Make me proud.

Remember the classic children's puppet adventure series? Rent copies of that, and avoid this mess. The film tries to give us an amiable tribute to the original show, which goes awry, and it all falls flat. First, it tries too hard to be funny, even inserting cartoon sound effects in several scenes. The actors mug like idiots, and the script stoops even lower than they do in intelligence level. This movie ends up mocking the series with not enough adventure or story and way too much satirical content. Nothing is cohesive; the audience neither cares what's happening, nor laughs at anything they see. It tries to rip off Jackie Chan and similar satires, but none of the actors have the required comedic talent to accomplish this. The actors in this are at the level of Date Movie; I almost felt sorry for Ben Kingsley. Why did he sign on to this? He joins in all the low-brow one liners and camera mugging. Just embarrassing. The puppets in the original show were far more emotive and interesting than anybody here. A failure.

Nothing was more weird than the Thunderbirds - growing up my brother and I watched them. Then, a couple of years ago my boyfriend and I started to watch annotated Thunderbirds episodes on Tech TV. So now there is a movie. It's very definitely a kids' movie, unless you care about the franchise. What is interesting was the amount of Star Trek influence. The film was directed by Jonathan Frakes (number 1 from Next Gen) and his years with STNG clearly affected this picture. They got the vehicles exactly perfectly and replicated them in a brilliant way, and there are a load of new vehicles that are all hella cool. The graphics (screen displays and other CG) are colorful and vivid, and the live actor cast are cleverly matched to the original puppets --- ESPECIALLY Lady Penelope. Her hot pink spy car that turns into a private jet rocks. I want it! I guess it's year's Spy Kids. It's really cute and I had a good time. It's an action movie that'll get the good housekeeping seal of approval. If you don't care about Thunderbirds you might not get much out of it, but if you do, it is not a waste of time. Beware that it's a little sucky and they just had to wreck it at the end, but it's very cute if you can get past the fact that all the good people are lily white, all the servants are ethnic, and then all the bad people are either ugly, misshapen, non-symmetrical, swarthy or otherwise dark. I think its a great movie for kids on the action side, but the subtext of the stereotypes is something that I worry will reinforce racist/sexist thinking in our next gen and for that reason it gets a lower vote.

I grew up (b. 1965) watching and loving the Thunderbirds. All my mates at school watched. We played "Thunderbirds" before school, during lunch and after school. We all wanted to be Virgil or Scott. No one wanted to be Alan. Counting down from 5 became an art form. I took my children to see the movie hoping they would get a glimpse of what I loved as a child. How bitterly disappointing. The only high point was the snappy theme tune. Not that it could compare with the original score of the Thunderbirds. Thankfully early Saturday mornings one television channel still plays reruns of the series Gerry Anderson and his wife created. Jonatha Frakes should hand in his directors chair, his version was completely hopeless. A waste of film. Utter rubbish. A CGI remake may be acceptable but replacing marionettes with Homo sapiens subsp. sapiens was a huge error of judgment.

This is a truly awful film. What they have done is taken a TV show, which was never aimed at young children & given it the George Lucas treatment (i.e. ruined it by kiddifying it to appeal to the younger audience). OK so the Thunderbirds TV show wasn't exactly the most cerebral of shows, in fact it was pretty formulaic, but it was always enjoyable to watch (especially when the models got blown up) and the voice cast wasn't too bad. This suffers from bad casting & bad acting (with the notable exceptions of Sophia Myles as Lady Penelope & Ron Cook as Parker, who seem to be the only cast members to have a clue about how their characters should be played) & after this travesty I wouldn't let Frakes direct traffic. The whole point of Thunderbirds was that it was about the whole Tracy family & how they worked as a team, preventing disasters or coming to the rescue of those involved in disasters. Avoid this rubbish like the plague. I only give it 1 out of 10 because a zero rating is not supported.

The picture deals with a family whose purpose is save the world of dangers and risks generated by naturals forces or the cruel villains who want to rule over and dominate it . It's an all time work for the astronaut Jeff Tracey (Bill Paxton) and his sons as well as the incredible machines utilized ¨the Thunderbirds¨ which the world depends . But now they are menaced by an evil foe called ¨The Hood¨ (Sir Ben Kingsley) who has trapped them in the space and has taken control the aircrafts and utilizes for his horrible intentions . Then Alan , the youngest son , remains in the secret island . He's only helped by other adolescents and Lady Penelope (Sophia Myles) and , of course , the chauffeur of her spectacular car . Did have they sufficient courage to save the family and world? The Thunderbirds emerge with impressive and exciting action and with extraordinary rockets and crafts controlled by the family members and intervening anywhere being necessary . The cast is constituted by Bill Paxton (Apolo13 , Twister) as a courageous dad who rules correctly his boys , Anthony Edwards (ER) as a nutty wise man , Ben Kingsley as a nefarious nasty , Sophia Myles as Lady Penelope who appears attractive and gorgeous and the rest cast are brave teens and young heroes . Hans Zimmer score is an adaptation from serial television music . The film is regularly directed by Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek : Insurrection , The first contact) . The movie will appeal to children and nostalgics.

The original Thunderbirds earned a place in TV history. It was, and still is, much beloved - indeed, the entire first 10 minutes of the Wallace and Gromit movie (the Wererabbit) is a direct lift of Thunderbirds, down to a direct replay of the original Thunderbird 2 launching sequence (if you don't believe me, get the movie, and then get a copy of the original episode where Thunderbird 2 is launched). This movie was a crass attempt at making a kids' movie - when the original was loved and enjoyed by kids and adults alike! In the original, the Thunderbirds spent all of their time rescuing people who were often trapped when Mother Nature or Technology went horrible wrong (yes, there was also the occasional criminal act). The Thunderbirds put their own lives and resources at risk for no reward - the very essence of heroism and selflessness. There was little physical violence. The Thunderbirds challenged the imagination to a degree - how many of us would dream of someday building a Thunderbird 2? And don't underestimate the power of entertainment to do this - many Japanese attribute their fascination with humanoid robots to the old Astroboy cartoon. But this movie was a poor re-image of the original. This movie came across as a meld between Thunderbirds and Loony Tunes - I mean, we have Anthony Edwards as Brain imitating Porky Pig's stuttering????? Much of the action consists of Kung Fu/Power Rangers type fighting. Indeed, there were funny sound effects when someone got nailed on the head with a frying pan. The tech that fired our imagination was absent - instead we have these kids running around, using a plot device that was NEVER in the original series (having the entire team take off at once, leaving the base occupied by the kids and Brain). Then there was a dose of "Use the Force Luke" mysticism thrown in when TinTin would levitate something or another, coupled with the The Hood using aerodynamics that looked like they were lifted from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". About the only thing missing was for The Hood to go "TinTin, I am your Uncle" with a breath mask voice. The heart that made Thunderbirds unique was GONE. The only bright point was Ron Cook's portrayal of Parker - he caught it perfectly. But the actress playing Lady Penelope came across as a child - HUH???? And this is why we hate this movie. When someone puts out something that was popular to a fan base, and expects the fans to shell out money to watch, and then delivers something than wasn't even close to what the fans expect - well, I am sorry, that is just plain WRONG! OK, so if they were making a kids' movie - fine - next time distribute it straight to video, where many of these belong. But don't package something up in a familiar wrapper and change the innards.