TV Century 21

Thunderbirds the movie opened this weekend in the US. So after all the comments, hints and tidbits of information over the past year or so, how is the movie anyway? Well, to be honest, its not as bad as I feared. But one thing is certain: This is not "Classic Thunderbirds". In the TV Century 21 review of "Thunderbirds the movie", we take a detailed look at the movie, what worked and what didn't, what to look for and when to look away.

Warning: This review is somewhat lengthy and contains plot points. If you want to avoid spoilers, see the movie first. Otherwise, dive in.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

When dangerous situations exceed the limitations of ordinary military and international security forces, the world calls upon the high-tech assistance of International Rescue - a mysterious band of fearless adventurers and their fleet of awesome, imaginatively engineered vehicles known as: Thunderbirds! Hidden from the world, Tracy Island, a lush patch of land situated in the remote waters of the South Pacific, is home to brilliant entrepreneur and former astronaut Jeff Tracy (Bill Paxton) and his five sons. It is also the headquarters of Tracy's top-secret organization, International Rescue - and it is under siege.

Master criminal The Hood (Ben Kingsley) has breached island security, intent on commandeering International Rescue's fleet of five highly advanced rescue vehicles, each designed to accomplish a specific task. Deploying Jeff and his four eldest sons on a mission, The Hood finds his plans obstructed by Jeff's youngest son Alan (Brady Corbet), who will do anything to save the Tracy family and the Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds is a live-action feature film based on the hit British television series of the 1960s, which followed the perilous exploits of the Tracy family.

THUNDERBIRDS THE MOVIE - REVIEW

The movie opens with a strangely flat and dare I say slow beginning with a noticeable amount of narration to set the scene. No explosions. That is probably necessary for the 99% of the audience who know nothing about the TV show. What is odd about the start is that instead of showing the audience what International Rescue does, it tells them via narration. From animated shots showing stylised Thunderbirds craft, we go to a stylised shot of an american school bus which seemed very out of place, but of course leads us to the fact that children are the primary focus and, sadly, the primary stars of the movie. We see a young Alan Tracy at school in Massachussets and then we see a televised (!!!) rescue by the Thunderbirds on TV. Alan and his school friends watch with excitement. This is where the movie shows some of its potential, as we get to see a rescue on an oil rig. Thunderbird 1 and 2 perform the rescue and I have to say that this part of it was very well done. It was odd to see them cutting away to people watching the rescue on TV and this is where we see the first divergence from the original "classic" series. For some reason, International Rescue does not shy away from TV cameras, while strangely, attempting to maintain their secrecy. By the way, despite being named "International Rescue", they apparently now refer to themselves as "Thunderbirds". In an early cringe-inspiring scene Alan Tracy says "I want to be a Thunderbird".

Lady Penelope arrives shortly after the rescue is completed and whisks Alan and Fermat (Brains' son - new for the movie) away to Tracy Island. Once we get to Tracy Island we see the familiar yet clumsy "oh Alan, you're too young to do anything useful" routine. The main difference here is that the movie appears to be set before the TV series, so Alan is younger than the TV show version and does not yet pilot a craft of his own. I know this attitude was done in the TV show too, but in the movie version he is not really even supposed to go near one of the Thunderbirds craft. It seems quite odd. To keep Alan and Fermat company, we have a younger TinTin, giving us three children who will become the focus of the movie. We also have Kyrano and a mysterious indian lady who is probably "Mrs" Kyrano. No sign of granmaw however. Unless she is indian I suppose.

Shortly after the family is re-united on Tracy island, the Hood fires a rocket from his sub at Thunderbird 5 and disables it. International Rescue sends up Thunderbird 3 with (for no clear reason) Jeff, Virgil, Scott and Gordon. Thunderbird 3 manages to dock with Thunderbird 3 but during this time, The Hood arrives on the island and takes over control of the base and Thunderbird 5. So now we have a situation where the entire "grown-up" Tracy family is stranded in space and its up to the children and to save the day. Lucky, plot convenience playhouse provides Lady Penelope and Parker to assist in their own way. Kyrano does nothing much except react to the colourful sets.

Its fairly well known that Gerry Anderson did not much care for the John Tracy puppet and decreed that he should be kept "out of the way" up in Thunderbird 5. This way he would be able to play a part, but his screen time would be kept to an absolute minimum. This seems to have been the approach taken by the scriptwriters who placed the entire adult Tracy family out of the way for the majority of the movie. This is of course essential if the movie is to rely on the children to save the day. This is without a doubt the worst part of the plot and where the movie diverges most from the original series. Why oh why is that "Classic" TV shows invariably get remade as movies where the basic premise is drastically changed? "The Avengers" I'm looking in your direction...

Of course, the children do manage to get the Tracy family back down and ultimately prevent the Hood from completing his dastardly plan. So what is his plan? In another divergence, the Hood is now a good old fashioned bank robber. No longer interested in photographing the International Rescue craft and selling the schematics to the highest bidder. This is presumably because the vehicles now appear regularly on TV. In addition to all five Thunderbird craft, we get to see the Mole, Firefly and the Thunderizer. Thunderizer? what is that? Before I go there, I should say that I think the main 5 craft maintain the original designs while looking modern (even though, technically, they are supposed to be earlier). Thunderbird 1 now has a large glass sections and Thunderbird 2 is much more angular. Thunderbird 4 is most different, looking like a reject from the Abyss. The mole looks kind-of the same, but has this bizarre set of counter-rotating blades that is probably based on the drills they used to do the channel tunnel. The firefly looks the same, but for no obvious reason fires GREEN GOO instead of a rocket. I say this because at one stage, it fires at the Hood's cronies. How much more useful would a rocket have been in that place? The Thunderizer is something that looks like it was found at the back of a freight warehouse, but magically creates square holes in things. Handy.

The vehicles are all very colourful, making extensive use of primary colours. In fact the whole movie has a very vibrant and colourful look to it which is probably quite appropriate. What is odd about the craft is that the pod vehicles are practically not seen at all. Mostly what we see are close ups of the character and a quick medium shot. Its very hard to figure out what the pod vehicles actually look like. Now that is a departure from the show I can't say I care for. Having said that, what I did see was painfully generic and derivative of the Aliens/Abyss /Fork Lift design school. This rule for shots of craft is also sadly true for the main Thunderbirds craft which get surprisingly little screen time once the action starts.

After the whole "Spy Kids" emulation thing, one of the biggest failings of the movie has to be the significant amount of screen time that is given to the characters in contrast to the time given to complex rescues and seeing cool hardware flying about. This is a THUNDERBIRDS movie. Its an easy mistake to make I suppose, George Lucas has been making this mistake for the last two Star Wars movies. I know I would have gladly traded 20 minutes of children running around the island and saving the day for 10 minutes of Thunderbirds in action. Even 5 minutes.

Possibly in an effort to even things up, the ever imaginative screenwriters gave the Hood a couple of assistants. A hulking man who seems to be able to take a great deal of punching and maintain an anger level set to 11. He seems to manage a small cadre of henchmen. There is also a woman assistant who is hideous to look at but smart. Kind of an opposite to Brains. How do they think of these things?

The adults remaining on the island end up in a nonsensical scene in a freezer where Lady Penelope gets noticeably cold. It is only once they are joined by the children that Parker remembers that he is an expert safe cracker and can handle the vault with 6 cylinders on the freezer. What???? Why is there a SAFE LOCK on the inside of a freezer? What about a handle? Possibly the most ludicrous plot point... Another ludicrous plot point was the way the children were able to get right into the main control area of Tracy island from outside by simply lifting a vent and walking down a large shaft. This is supposed to a secret organisation, but their security sucks.

While on the topic of Lady Penelope, I have to say that Lady Penelope and Parker were exceptionally well done and all their scenes retained the "classic" feel while being current. The costumes were spot-on and Lady Penelope even had a beehive hair do towards the end. In stark contrast, the older Tracy brothers looked nothing like their TV counterparts, wearing silver/grey jumpsuits that looked very blah. (UK:naff) None of the Tracy brothers had any charisma and I could not really even tell who was who. None of them had enough screen time for the audience to know who they are or really what they do. Certainly nothing about the characters themselves.

An interesting development of Lady Penelope and Parker was to make them both somewhat handy in a fight. Clearly, fights were not really possible with puppets, but it was interesting to see Parker and Lady Penelope punching and kicking the bad guys, even if there was the occasional "boing" type of fight sounds. It was very reminiscent of a fight from an Avengers episode, especially as Lady Penelope seems quite capable of delivering Kung Fu kicks.

That was something I thought was odd and a definite negative aspect to the aforementioned obsession with making the children the focus of the movie. While I understand costume is not everything, the Tracy brothers that we saw were bland and characterless while Parker and Lady Penelope were the exact opposite, with flair and charisma. While on the topic of characters, I do want to say that I think Ben Kingsley did a decent job as the Hood. That's a tough character to do and I think he did it with the appropriate amount of seriousness and villainousness(?) without making it seem too campy. Without a doubt, the worst interpretation for character has to be Brains who was played by "ER"'s Anthony Edwards. He had no personality and did not even seem that smart, although the st-st-stutter was thre. His greatest achievement? A floppy piece of rubber with wires which gave him Jedi telekenetic powers. Just move the mole over there willya pal? Thanks. Bill Paxton's Jeff Tracy is reasonable, but the character is given waaay too much screen time at the expense of the older Tracy brothers. Not only does he pilot some of the craft, but he dominates every scene where he is involved.

The story eventually ends up in London near the London Eye/Houses of Parliament. Now we get to see Thunderbirds 1,2 and 3 land in central London, which is cool, we also get to see another rescue, but the whole rescue scene feels painfully manufactured. A cool "classic" reference is that the rescue involves a monorail. What is dumb, is that we have a monorail in a part of London with numerous bridges. What exactly is the monorail there for? Who cares, say the screenwriters, we want to include one and have the children do a rescue. Great. Thanks.

The Hood then uses the Mole to bore (resisting urge for sarcasm...) his way into the bank of England... oh I mean London. It all comes together here for a battle of wits and hardware which is more in common with the jedi fights of Star Wars than Thunderbirds. Much to my pleasure, the Hood's evil lighting up eyes remain in the movie, but made more credible by making them glow red instead of yellow(!). He seems to have telekinetic Jedi powers too (no cap required), which at this point nobody cares about as they just want to see the end of the movie.

The music is fairly generic stuff, but we do get the occasional Thunderbirds theme cue when the craft take off. We also get it when a cell phone rings (cringe). Thankfully, the quality of the special effects CGI work is outstanding and I have to say it was very cool to see the main vehicles look so realistic. I was a bit disappointed in the Thunderbird 2 launch however, it looked huge, but when it took off, I did not get the impression of the power, instead I was left with the impression that a large green blimp had just lifted up. Where was the blazing rockets and over the top smoke? Where was the little rod to steady the model? Perhaps a little too critical...

It is well known that Ford provided the FAB 1 for this movie. That's nice. What gets a bit irritating however, is that EVERY VEHICLE IN THE MOVIE is a Ford car and has the nameplate clearly in view each time. Every police car, every car in the street. For crying out loud, there is even a Ford Thunderbird in the pod hangar! That is taking product placement to an uncomfortable level. Talking of which, we also get to see "Ben & Jerry" ice cream in the freezer. Please... I'm paying to see a movie, not advertising.

It's also somewhat unclear (at least to me) what year the movie takes place. A recent trailer shows the year as 2010 but I think the movie starts with the year around 2020. Not only is that somewhat vague, but with the exception of the Thunderbirds vehicles and FAB1, all other hardware is contemporary 2002. Perhaps one might pass this off as another attempt to emulate the TV show which used miniature toys of contemporary cars in the background, but I suspect that they had a pretty sweeeeet deal with Ford.

CLASSIC MOMENTS

As might be expected, there are a number of "classic" moments which were thrown in by the oh-so-generous screenwriters for the die-hard fans. Much to my surprise, they threw in quite a few of these moments. Here are the ones I noticed listed for your viewing delight:

• During the launch of Thunderbird 1 toward the end, there is one shot where a PUPPET HAND goes down on the controls of Thunderbird 1
• Early in the movie, the Hood makes a reference to "as easy as a puppet on a string"
• The monorail featured in the rescue in London is based on the monorails from two episodes
• The Hood's sub is based on the sub from "Deperate Intruder"
• The Bank of England/London was featured in "Vault of Death"
• The oil rig at the start was based on "Atlantic Inferno"
• The hover bikes used on the island appear to be identical to the ones from City of fire"
• The inclusion of the Mole and Firefly
• The teapot message signal for Lady Penelope

Some familiar names appear in the end credits including Mike (Michael) Trim who assisted with the vehicle designs. Also listed in Sylvia Anderson, but Gerry is (famously) not associated with the movie and does not appear anywhere in the credits. Barry Gray is referenced by way of (Gray) for the music theme, but that's about it. The credits run for a looooong time so its clear that the $45 million it cost went to pay for a great deal of people.

SUMMARY

This movie had so much negativity around it, that I expected the worst, but thankfully, it was not the worst. It was not Thunderbirds in the classic sense either. The good scenes are great, but the bad scenes predominate and the juvenile-centric plotline only serves to alienate what few people might want to see the movie. The acting runs the gamut from outstanding to dreadful. truly this is a movie full of contrasts.

Ultimately, what is most disappointing about this movie is that you can see the potential and how the movie might have been if they had not been so obsessed with emulating the "Spy Kids" genre of movies. Perhaps if Thunderbirds had been allowed to retain its basic premise it might have been a more approachable movie for people. The original Thunderbirds TV series was targeted to children but rarely featured them as main characters, unless they were victims or inconveniences. The main characters were adults. The stories were fantastic and told with colourful characters and spectacular effects scenes. That is what made Thunderbirds. I fear that by making the children the main characters, the movie lost a significant portion of its potential audience. 2 pods out of 5.

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CREDITS

Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Jonathan Frakes. Written by William Osborne and Michael McCullers. Based on the television series and story by Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson, Peter Hewitt and William Osborne. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated PG (for intense action sequences and language)

Jeff Tracy: Bill Paxton
Brains: Anthony Edwards
Lady Penelope: Sophia Myles
The Hood: Ben Kingsley
Alan Tracy: Brady Corbet
TinTin: Vanessa Anne Hudgens
Scott Tracy: Philip Winchester
John Tracy: Lex Shrapnel
Virgil Tracy: Dominic Colenso
Gordon Tracy: Ben Torgersen

Action/Adventure and Comedy
1 hr. 27 min.

Release Date: July 30th, 2004 (wide).

MPAA Rating: PG for intense action sequences and language.

Distributor: Universal Pictures