Thunderbirds
Dir: Jonathan Frakes
2004
*
Yikes! I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone attempted a live version of The Thunderbirds, interesting that that someone would be Jonathan Frakes and odd how he could get it so wrong. Gerry Anderson has said many times that he originally wanted his series to be live action but with the many special effects it involved the budget would have been huge, so he decided to use puppets and models instead. I enjoyed all of Anderson's puppet shows when I was younger, he's got a huge cult following but what Frakes failed to realise, is that it's the puppet element that people enjoyed the most. I'm not surprised that fans were more than a little upset about this film. Firstly, the Thunderbirds aren't really in it which is a fairly unforgivable flaw (and they are all about 12 years old, what is that about?), and secondly, it's solely aimed at young kids who would be unfamiliar with the original TV series - thus ostracizing the true fans. If that wasn't enough, the main story basically involves three obnoxious kids running around shouting and 'high fiving' each other every ten minutes and a young (lipstick wearing?) boy who has father issues. It's as awful as it sounds. That said, Bill Paxton was perfect casting (considering he was portraying a wooden puppet - but I still love him) and Ben Kingsley looked just like Hood from the original series.