Brady Corbet as Alan Tracy
Debora Weston as Teacher
Soren Fulton as Fermat
Lou Hirsch as Headmaster
Alex Barringer as Excited Kid
Demetri Goritsas as News Anchor
Genie Francis as Lisa Lowe
Philip Winchester as Scott Tracy
Dhobi Oparei as Mullion (as Deobia Oparei)
Bill Paxton as Jeff Tracy
Kyle Herbert as Know It All Kid
Dominic Colenso as Virgil Tracy
Ben Torgersen as Gordon Tracy
Sophia Myles as Lady Penelope
Ron Cook as Parker
Critique:
Whenever there is a disaster in the world, the Thunderbirds race to the rescue. In this live action remake of the 1960’s marionette television show, they have gone the Spy Kids route. Instead of following the formula of the television show, the action revolves around young kids who must use nifty gadgets and cool toys to save the day.
The Thunderbirds are lead by billionaire Jeff Tracy (Bill Paxton) who, with his eldest sons, travel the world to rescue anyone that they can help. Jeff’s youngest son Alan (Brady Corbet) feels left out since they will not let him fly around the world with them just because he has not yet finished school. Fortunately for Alan, and unfortunately for the rest of the Tracy clan, all of the members of the Thunderbirds are stranded on Thunderbird 5, the Thunderbird space station, after “The Hood” (Ben Kingsley) takes control of the Thunderbird command center.
All of this is brought to the screen beautifully with a very large CGI budget. The special effects are super and the sound is great. However, the plot is linear and almost exactly the same as Spy Kids. The acting by the kids is a bit hit or miss. Even the adults do not put in their best work, with the exception of Sophia Myles as Lady Penelope.
There are two main audiences for this movie. The first is the people who watched the original television show and are looking forward to seeing it brought to the big screen. Those people will love the way many of the shows vehicles have been brought to life, but they might not like the way the story revolves around a child character who had been an adult in the series. The other group is the 7 to 15, mostly boy, crowd. They should enjoy the movie having no preconceptions and a higher tolerance for repetitive plots. There is also a lot of eye candy to offer them.
Who should see this movie? Mostly it is a fun family movie that the adults can live through as the kids have a fun time. There is a slight love story and a lot of mostly low brow humor. It takes no great intelligence to see this one, and if you want to challenge your mind you need to look elsewhere. The action is pretty good when it is on screen, but action fans will have to live through some child acting. Overall, it is a great movie for young kids and serious fans of the Thunderbirds television show. Anyone else will just need to be in the right mood to watch it.
