Release Date: July 30, 2004
Starring: Brady Corbet, Bill Paxton, Ben Kingsley, Sophia Myles, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, Soren Fulton, Ron Cook, Anthony Edwards
Directed by: Jonathan Frakes
Written by: William Osborne, Michael McCullers
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG (intense action sequences, language)
You can see the logic behind a Thunderbirds movie: Studio execs probably thought that it would appeal to children, who made a success out of the Spy Kids franchise and some of its lesser-known spin-offs (like 2004’s Catch That Kid), and that it would also appeal to their parents, some of whom might remember the British, Saturday-morning television show upon which this movie is based.
But neither group is likely to enjoy this film, which is directed by Jonathan Frakes. Adults will find themselves bogged down in a mess of kiddie slapstick action, and children will be confused and even bored by the movie’s quaint, nostalgic style.
Both demographics will probably be able to recognize the mold for this quick but low-watt action picture: Alan Tracy (Brady Corbet) -- the son of the billionaire former astronaut and the head of a top-secret international rescue operation, Jeff Tracy (Bill Paxton) -- longs to partake in the world-saving fun that his father and brothers are up to, but is denied the chance because he is too young, a misfit in his own family.
Then, when a mysterious villain named The Hood (Ben Kingsley) contrives to hold the Tracys hostage while taking over their secret island headquarters, somewhere in the South Pacific, Alan is left with his friends Tin-tin (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) and Fermat (Soren Fulton) to save the day, after much ruckus and tomfoolery. Home Alone, anyone?
Thunderbirds employs a bit more computer-generated effects than any Macaulay Culkin movie, but the results are basically the same. Buffoonish bad guys can deal with the adults, no problem, but they never see the kids coming and subsequently receive their comeuppance. If I were a bad guy, the first thing I’d do as part of my plan for world dominance would be to round up every kid within a 50-mile radius and lock them all in a closet. It’d be all downhill from there.
As it turns out, the first step in The Hood’s plan for world dominance is pilfering the Bank of London (which in real life is called the Bank of England, something you would expect Sir Ben Kingsley to know) by using the Thunderbirds’ vehicles, thereby making off with the loot and framing the Tracys in the process. How devious.
To do this, he attacks Thunderbird 5, a space station in orbit above the Earth from which the Tracys monitor the world for crises; when the Thunderbirds blast off to rescue the station, he invades their headquarters, and then shuts down the power to Thunderbird 5, stranding the Tracys in outer space. At times, the plot of Thunderbirds plays out like a smorgasbord of Star Trek storylines, perhaps no coincidence given that Frakes has directed two different Trek films.
Luckily, the Thunderbirds have some help, as anyone who has seen the original “Thunderbirds” television series will know. Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward (Sophia Myles), the Thunderbirds’ agent in London, is on the case, there to look after Alan and help the rest of the Tracys get back to Earth. (The original “Thunderbirds” was filmed in so-called Supermarionation, which means that all of the characters were wooden marionettes operated by puppeteers pulling on barely-visible strings. In real life, Lady Penelope turns out to be a leggy British bombshell, which only makes her, like, the sexiest babysitter in the entire universe.)
As usual, Lady Penelope is followed everywhere by her chauffeur, Parker (Ron Cook). Cook and Myles lend a much-needed bit of dry, British humor to what is otherwise an Americanized production. Apart from them, the rest of the actors, including Paxton and Corbet, are as wooden as the puppets they have replaced, and Kingsley’s screwy bad guy is buried under so much mascara it’s possible he had trouble seeing straight on the set.
The movie is set in the near future, when the Thunderbirds have apparently become a household name, which is more than they ever achieved while they were on the air in the 1960’s. They also have surprisingly unrestricted access to any corner of the globe, just one of many aspects of the film that goes completely unexplained. Another is the expression “F-A-B!”, which everyone says all the time, in which case I have to assume it probably means something good, since the Tracys are your basic all-American, master-race family: good-looking and bright-eyed, with nary a raw word or emotion among them. (The minority characters and those with physical disabilities, like Anthony Edwards’s rendition of the nearsighted Brains -- the Thunderbirds’ equivalent to James Bond’s Q -- are kept well away from any important duties, or even a real part in the movie.)
I sincerely hope that this version of Thunderbirds doesn’t catch on, because that means we’ll likely be spared a sequel. Any follow-up to this movie probably wouldn’t have enough of Lady Penelope, and too much of the Tracys and the oddball goons they inevitably end up facing off against -- a movie that would be, very decidedly, not F-A-B.
-- Craig Roush (craigroush@hotmail.com)