OK I admit it I'm a lifelong TBirds fan. The first episode screened when I was three and a half and I've been hooked ever since. I don't think the producers and director of this film were, the spirit isn't there. Thunderbirds is a fantastic franchise potential, in that there is very little evil in the show.I know there's the hood but he doesn't always appear, the only constant is peoples lives being saved in tense and action packed ways that require kid friendly super- machines. How can you lose. Hardly any killing or swearing and gritty action.
The original was made for kids in as much as it was puppets but all The Century 21 series would have used live action if Gerry Anderson and ITC could have afforded it and the stories did not talk down to or patronise their audience with the result I can still happily watch them today with my little girl. This is the kind of kids film that used to go down well at the ABC minors when mum went shopping. It doesn't have as much of the dual adult and kids appeal of the original and will probably appeal mostly to the younger children who (if they can get you to take 'em, it's a PG) aren't really going to mind the poor humour, and won't remember what Thunderbird 2 should look like or that Lady P wouldn't be seen dead in a Ford. Or that the original Tracy family were too smart to ever all go on the same rescue at once and therefore fall into traps.
The casting is mixed really. Jeff looks far too young to be a father of five and the hood is good old English Ben Kingsley! when he obviously should have been Burt Kwok with his head shaved. TinTin is just too "american teen" with non of the asian dignity and reserve needed for her future life of looking after the ailing Kirano and the Tracy boys blend a little but then I used to get Alan and Gordon confused originally and there will never be an actor with Shane Rimmers voice and Scott Tracy's looks outside of Kirk Douglas and sadly he's had his day for action parts. The Action is however pretty good. Except for the monorail, which for some reason looks more like a model than anything Derek Meddings ever did on the telly, the thunderbirds do pay reasonable lipservice to the original designs and there is still enough here to cling to the hope that it could be rescued by a sequel with a better plot, brains Jr and TinTin sent off to University and Allan doing a decent days work for a decent days pay.
