I am currently unemployed but planning on putting my photography degree to good use. I enjoy the gr...
I am currently unemployed but planning on putting my photography degree to good use. I enjoy the great outdoors, wildlife and nature. Films, TV and music. Writing and film-making.
Member since:18.07.2007
Reviews:16
Members who trust:1
I am sat watching this on a Satruday afternoon and it is one of the most appalling films I have ever had the misfortune to see.
It is excrutiatingly dull and pointless and has none of the charm and ingenuity of the puppet series. It suffers from a weak plot. The Thunderbirds are out of action for most of the film (trapped as they are in a damaged Thunderbird 5, running out of oxygen and in danger of burning up inEarths armosphere) leaving it up to a trio of kids to take on most of the action. This makes it look like a pale imitation of the Spy Kids films.
This could have been an excellent hard action thriller had they gone for dark and sinister and dramatic over comic book nonsense, comedy boing noises during fight sequences and annoying child actors, one of which looks like his head is made from plastic and playdoh, step forward Alan Tracey.)
Ben Kinglsey is perfectly cast as The Hood but has very little to do. His plot to steal money from banks using the Thunderbirds vehicles isn't even up to the standard of his neafrious plans in the old TV series. And it takes forever for him to evenget to the point of getting one of the Thunderbirds vehicles to work!
The trouble is the Tracey family come across as haughty rich assholes who think they are great who live a playboy existence on an Island. You actually want The Hood to win. Why he doesn't blow up Thunderbird 5 with another rocket while the Tracey boys are on it is beyond me. It would have saved a lot of trouble and made the film a lot shorter.
It was a seriously bad decision to make this as a jokey kid orientated yarn. The 60's series had humour in but it was in general played straight. The stories featured real people in trouble. A mini Irwin Allen disaster movie in nearly every episode. This filmdoes away with that. Had I gone to see this at the cinema I think I would have walked out and asked for my money back.
The sequences at the start of the film supposedly set in the US are clearly filmed in the UK and feel just very odd. There are too many characters, none of which you care about. Lady Penelope and Parker are the only 'goodies' that are any good. But even they are poorly written parts.
The worst bit of the whole travesty for me is the character of Alan and the actor playing him. Played as a cocky know it all who actually screws up and makes stupid decisions for the most part is just the type of person you'd gladly punch if the need arose. The rest of the Tracey clan have no character at all. Bill Paxton is wasted as Jeff, but then the whole of the Thunderbirds are wasted in this film.
I made a joke to a friend of mine about Thunderturds and that I had produced and directed better visits to the toilet. A few moments later a kid made the Thunderturds comment onthe film. Its as if the makers knew what a load of rubbish they were making and were trying to say it before anyone else did. Except they didn't in my case. I got there first. And this was only about 5 minutes into the film.
Again I think it would have been better if director Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker, Star Trek the Next Generation) had made a dark gritty disaster thriller with a real threat and heroes you could believe in. There is no sense of danger, peril or excitement.
A massive pile of steaming shi*!
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Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Aug 11th, 2007
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