Thunderbirds (2004)

Best movie ever!

A Masterpiece!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Now I know they are making a new Thunderbirds series so I just thought I would jot down a quick review describing what I thought of this monstrosity.This is a movie that deserves a big fat zero. I wanted to go and see it. So I asked my mum even though I was in my 40s to take me. She has a pained look on her face and said do I have to? I said yes. I looked in the papers and it had only lasted a day.A couple of weeks later it was out on VHS and I bought it. Wow was I in for a shock. I have seen some bad movies but this one must rank as one of the lowest. I loved TB as child. Loved the music and the rockets.In this one it is a lame kids movie. Aimed at under 4s.If you know someone and want to get them a present which will make them hate you this is it! Truly and complete. The worst ever. Hang your head in shame Frakes.

Extract from Gerry Anderson's interview at BBC in 2008 : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7655589.stmReporter : You were reportedly unhappy with the Thunderbirds film that was released in 2004. How do you feel about it now?Gerry Anderson : I was bitterly upset about that because I had been invited by the producer to discuss the possibility of acting as a consultant. But a few days later I had a letter saying: "I'm terribly sorry but we've got enough creative people on the payroll so we can't offer you anything." Four weeks before the premiere I got a call from Universal Pictures saying they would pay me $750,000 (£432,000) for me to attend and I turned it down. I could've done with that, but I couldn't bring myself to accept it and make false reports about it. I didn't go to see it, but about three months after somebody gave me a DVD and I watched it on my own. I thought it was disgraceful that such a huge amount of money was spent with people who had no idea what Thunderbirds was about and what made it tick.

I'd take a guess that nobody involved in the production of this disaster (pun intended) actually sat down and discussed what was truly at the core of Gerry Anderson's THUNDERBIRDS. The answer is peril. It's about large scale disaster, nail-biting tension, ticking bombs, cool mechanics and huge explosions. It is also quite serious. What Working Title and Commander Riker have done here is take a great concept and bastardise it into a sub-par Children's Film Foundation frolic that could have been adapted from any of a million and one concepts. Instead they've chosen to destroy any chance we could ever have of seeing a cool THUNDERBIRDS movie. Everything about this production is an insult to the intelligence of kids and adults alike. If only someone had had the guts to model it on THE TOWERING INFERNO (or indeed, ANY episode of the original show) instead of a SPY KIDS sequel, there might have been a chance to get a return on the $70m investment. A massive fail.

I enjoyed this movie with my siblings when we bought it, but my parents only tolerated it. It's understandable since this was obviously written for younger children. You may say I don't know what I'm talking about since I haven't seen the original TV series but for me, I can't get past the fact that the characters were played by puppets. Blame it on my generation if you want but the Thunderbirds was far more entertaining.Yes they could have made the special effects better and developed the characters better. The continuity errors were horrible! Still it made for good laughs for my family. I loved how dramatic it was. I mean it's not new that heroes get hurt and it appears that they have died but they are miraculously revived, but their are just parts of the movie that pulled me in and made me care about the characters.There were also parts that pulled me out of the story as well however. The sappy romance between Tintin and Alan is an example. You can totally tell from the beginning that they'll end up together. Thankfully there was no kissing. It's a kid's movie after all and you shouldn't expect kids who have only just started to like each other to kiss right away! I enjoyed the jokes in it and my family would just randomly quote the movie and start laughing especially if the joke was relevant to what we were doing at that moment. We also memorized the song for the ending credits (Thunderbirds Are GO) and sang it all the time.Yes it could have been made better, cooler, faster, maturer, all that jazz, but can't we also enjoy it for the amount of work that undoubtedly went into this movie as all movies. Anyone who's made a movie will know what I'm talking about. I think it wouldn't hurt for them to try again. Most people didn't even see the 1960's version or the 2004 version so if the movie was remade better and more widely advertised, it would be a big hit. There is a lot of potential in this story.