Peter Allen As a massive fan of Gerry Anderson's works, I was rather afraid of watching this film. Fortunately, I found it for a mere 50p. First, the good bits:Some action scenes were pretty good and the most of the Thunderbirds look pretty cool.Negatives: Tracy brothers are barely distinguishable, whereas in the original they each had unique appearances and voices.Thunderbird 2 looks terrible with it's fatter design.In the show, the hood would try to steal the secrets of the thunderbirds to sell to the highest bidder. What does this idiot do? He uses them to rob a bank when he could have easily just sold them like he always wanted.The idea of the hood having a massive sub and henchmen is a terrible decision. The hood is supposed to be mysterious and subtle, living in an ancient hidden temple.The three protagonists (Alan, Tintin and Fermat) are the usual stereotypes: Moody teen, strong girl and awkward nerd. In summary, don't pick this up even if it's free.

SnoopyStyle Alan Tracy is angry at being stuck in a high class boarding school while the rest of the family work in the secret International Rescue as the Thunderirds. His father former astronaut Jeff (Bill Paxton) is the leader. Alan is home for spring break. The evil Hood (Ben Kingsley) has attached a goo on their ship that acts as a tracking device. He attacks the orbiting space station Thunderbird 5. While most of the team go to the rescue, Hood and his henchmen arrive on the island. They capture Prof. Ray Hackenbacker. His son Fermat, Alan and friend Tin-Tin (Vanessa Hudgens) escape. Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward (Sophia Myles) and her butler Aloysius Parker set off to the rescue.I never saw the 60s TV show. I don't know much about it. I certainly won't compare this to that. This is basically Spy Kids with less fun. It's a lot of forgettable action. The lead kid isn't anything special. A young Vanessa Hudgens has a good size role. Ben Kingsley does his evil villain character as he sometimes does. Bill Paxton doesn't have much to do since he's stuck in the space station for most of the movie. It's not good but mostly harmless even considering its targeted kids audience.

sparkytb 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.

stargirlsnr 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.