Thunderbirds (2004) - An Insulting Adaptation!

The biggest inspiration I had as a young boy were programs and films with model work, and one example would be Gerry Anderson’s puppet masterclass, Thunderbirds. I loved the action and adventure each story had, and the work done with the model rockets and puppets were astounding. So obviously when a live action film came out in 2004, 7 year old me loved the whole idea. But now… my love for this film has diminished extremely.

As a child I loved practically anything, so I didn’t consider the context of this film, but into my teenage years and adulthood, I’ve realised how insulting this film is to the legacy of the puppet series. Gone is the action adventure surrounding this closely guarded family secret, and in comes this clique, boring and frustrating Spy Kids rip off! I didn’t watch Thunderbirds just to see one member of the Tracy family spend the entire film being a moaning and whiny brat. (Granted Alan wasn’t the most mature in the original either) I watched to see the family work as a team and use their incredible machines to save people. Trapping the Tracy family in space for 70% of the film was a severely misguided decision.

I can’t stand Alan (Brady Corbet) as a character here. Yes, he’s probably younger here than in the original series, but my god, he’s one of the most annoying child characters in film. Not the most annoying, but certainly close. I can’t think of anyone who wanted to see Alan be more bratty. The inclusion of Brains’ son, Fermat (Soren Fulton) was a completely pointless and unnecessary idea. I don’t need to image of Brains getting sexy with someone before the context of this film. Brains was meant to be engrossed into his engineering work, when would he have had the time to consider having a child? The only child character I ever got vaguely interested in was Tin Tin, (Vanessa Hudgens) due to the way they expanded on her father, Kyrano being related to this film’s antagonist (Ben Kingsley) The Hood’s connection to Kyrano was clear in the original, but nobody thought to consider how this affected Tin Tin. It was an interesting arc, albeit not explored in much depth. I’d rather have seen this get explored more, rather than clique teenage love banter.

The only actors I felt really suited their roles were Ben Kingsley, Sophia Myles, Ron Cook and Bill Paxton. Myles and Cook are the most entertaining as iconic duo, Lady Penelope and Parker. Their chemistry and banter while not as good as the dialogue seen in the original, is still fun to watch, and has more humour that kids at the time would find intriguing. I still prefer the work done by David Graham and Sylvia Anderson in the original, but nevertheless, Myles and Cook are equally as good in this iconic pairing. Kingsley embodies the menacing presence as The Hood, but does fall into the clique of a kids movie villain being very camp and over the top in certain moments. It’s hard to find your footing with him as he does a great job at some points, but then you really question some choices at other times. And the late Bill Paxton was the perfect choice for Jeff Tracy. He is exactly what I imagine Jeff would be like in real life. The biggest downside is how underused Jeff was. Paxton has some brilliant heart to heart moments, and brings some needed depth to Jeff’s past.

As someone who’s not been keen on the modern look to Hans Zimmer’s music style, I was extremely surprised by the work he did here. Granted this was before his work on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, so it was before everyone jumped on the bandwagon that started there. Zimmer brings across the original Thunderbirds theme, and creates a new variant that isn’t as good, but still embodies the classic melodies and moments that makes it such an iconic piece of British film music. His action cues are really thrilling, and help sell these high tension moments.

Considering how iconic the original designs of the Thunderbirds were, it’s such a shame to see them being overly modernised in this film. The designs aren’t awful, and look perfectly fine on screen. (Except for Thunderbird 2, which looks like poorly shaped piece of green play dough) Unfortunately, because of how much the original designs are engraved in people’s memory, any form of modernising the design will look poor in comparison.

To conclude, Thunderbirds isn’t even a Thunderbirds film. It’s a poorly written Spy Kids rip-off, trying to change things about the Thunderbirds formula that didn’t need changing! Considering two Thunderbirds films were made in the 1960s, sticking to what had been done in the original series, it’s surprising that they felt the need to basically ignore the format that the series had laid out beautifully for them. If you need something harmless to shut the kids up for 90 minutes, this shouldn’t fail you, but if you’re looking for something more faithful and overall entertaining, stick to the 60s original. It may look old, but it’s far more timeless than this insulting adaptation!

SCORES

Story - 0/5

Characters - 1/5

Production - 2/5

Acting - 1.5/5

Music - 3/5

TOTAL - 3/10