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Thunderbirds Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG (for intense action sequences and language) Theater release: July 30, 2004 by Universal Pictures Directed by: Jonathan Frakes Runtime: 1 hour 27 minutes Cast: Bill Paxton (Jeff Tracy), Ben Kingsley (The Hood), Brady Corbet (Alan Tracy), Soren Fulton (Fermat), Genie Francis (Lisa Lowe), Vanessa Anne Hudgens (Tin-Tin), Sophia Myles (Lady Penelope) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

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Say what you will about the Spy Kids trilogy and its sometimes wildly incoherent storylines, but at least those films had an infectiously childlike spirit that felt very age-appropriate. Watching them, you got the impression that director Robert Rodriguez and the children in his employ had a blast playing with their toys in the cinema sandbox. As with all things successful, the Spy Kids movies spawned a number of imitators, and the dullest and lamest of the lot so far may be Thunderbirds, a live-action remake of the televised marionette show from the mid-1960s. Once again, regular children have to save their super-agent parents from some sort of villain, but Thunderbirds has nothing to offer in place of the surrealism and Latino cool that made Spy Kids so much fun; instead of a playful romp, the film has the workmanlike feel of a project that everyone did just for the paycheck.

Thunderbirds is directed by Jonathan Frakes, who certainly knows his way around science fiction movies based on TV shows, having directed his castmates in two of the Star Trek films (one of which, the Borg-battling First Contact, was easily the best Trek flick of the past dozen years). However, his strengths in this area may actually be a liability when it comes to this film; the high-octane special effects, and the deadly serious way in which he directs certain scenes of peril, work against the film's efforts to be a whimsical night out for the family.

The Tracys (including Bill Paxton as Jeff Tracy) go to work

Fans of the original series may be dismayed to find that the Thunderbirds rescue team itself is largely shut out of the story; as with the first Mission: Impossible film, so here: a movie based on a classic show about a team basically ditches the team so it can focus on a single protagonist. All of the Thunderbirds, including billionaire-astronaut patriarch Jeff Tracy (Bill Paxton) and his four eldest sons, are trapped aboard their space station following a missile attack by a psychic villain known only as The Hood (Ben Kingsley). With the Tracys trapped in orbit and running out of oxygen, The Hood takes over their island and puts in motion a plan that will make him rich while sullying the Thunderbirds' reputation forever.

Fermat (Soren Fulton), Alan (Brady Corbet) and Tin-Tin (Vanessa Anne Hudgens)

Ah, but there is, of course, one Tracy he overlooked. Alan (Brady Corbet), the youngest of the Tracy boys, is home on spring break; his father won't let him join the family business, as it were, but the current crisis gives Alan an opportunity to prove that he has what it takes to be a Thunderbird himself. So, with help from Fermat (Soren Fulton)—the geeky, bespectacled son of his dad's geeky, bespectacled assistant Brains (Anthony Edwards)—and a girl named Tin-Tin (Vanessa Anne Hudgens), he proceeds to steal components that The Hood needs very badly, and to evade The Hood's typically ineffectual henchpeople. (These are the sorts of bad guys who stand and wait, with dumb expressions on their faces, while a couple of good guys discuss which particularly vulnerable male body part to kick.)

The film is credited to three writers, none of whom have particularly promising pedigrees: Michael McCullers co-wrote the scatological Austin Powers movies; William Osborne co-wrote Twins and The Scorpion King; and Peter Hewitt, before directing the Garfield movie, previously worked on a film called Thunderpants, which was apparently about a boy whose gift for breaking wind helps him to become an astronaut, or something like that.

Ben Kingsley is The Hood,the film's big villain

There is nothing quite so lowbrow in the similarly-titled Thunderbirds, thank goodness (though one boy does employ a word that rhymes with "bird" when mocking the group). But the film does occasionally flirt with things that might prompt parents to arch an eyebrow or two. For example, because Brains has a stutter that is frequently played for comic relief, he gets to say things like, "What the he- he- devil is going on?" and, when The Hood orders him to do something, "Fu- Fu- No way!" I suppose it's possible he meant to say something innocuous like "Forget it," but that wasn't how it sounded to me at the time.

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