Review of Thunderbirds (2004) by Joseph M — 11 Aug 2007

"Who will rescue the rescuers?".

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Panned by critics. Avoided by me. With the premise I would watch it when it hit TV.

When I did. I was quite surprised. The opening credits were funkin terrible. But the realisation of the thunderbird ships in the opening rescue was very impressive. I was a little miffed that they were all american and how heavy handed the dialogue was. but the actual set up seemed ok.

Then came the plot.

Now this movie is a no brainer. You have international rescue. You have the ships. Now give them something to save. BUT NO. for some reason working title films and the powers that be decided to lose the whole premise that has been tried and tested in countless resurections over the last 40 years and totally fuck it up.

Why oh why in a thunderbird movie would you put the thunderbirds in space out of the way and have three sickly sterotypical kids saving the day using the thunderbirds tech (tho even that takes 60 minutes to happen). It's utter nonsense.

Calling this plot simle is an insult to easy plots. It's like a disney channel movie that got ben kingsley. It's peppered with cliche's, stupid jokes, pointless plot drivers and it all just ends up a total waste of what potentially could be a great franchise.

Nothing gets out of ths movie with any level of respect. The tracey brothers feel like a secret off shoot of G-A-Y. they have no character. no reason for anything and fall int pointless very quickly. Even bill paxton (ok never thought i'd say this) was rubbish. Kingsley made the eaiest money of his career with this surely and the kids urrgghhh. The only thing about this movie that comes out unscathed is Sophia Myles. She was loads of miss penelope fun. Typically british. Pretty hot and even though it's not a role without fault she sold it way more than anyone else in this turkey.

I really don't get how this happened. A simple conversion and this franchise woud be flying. What a fuck up.

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"Rib ticklin', M'Lady.".