This review is a part of my Bill Paxton Project, an attempt to watch and review every piece of film the man did during his lifetime.
Here we go. Or, should I say, “Thunderbirds are go”? Thunderbirds (2004) is a big screen adaptation of a 1960’s puppet show by Gerry Anderson, directed by Jonathan Frakes (Commander Will Riker in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”). Bill Paxton stars as “Jeff Tracy”, a billionaire ex-astronaut who pays nerds to build him high-tech vehicles and uses his sons as international rescuers. Jeff and his sons get trapped in orbit on their space station (yes, every ex-astronaut has their own space station) as a telepathic villain named “The Hood” (played by Ben Kingsley, who never once wears a hood) takes over their island in order to steal one of their fancy vehicles so he can rob a fictional bank in London. With this stage set, it falls upon a trio of barely-pubescents to save their family and catch the bad guys.
As difficult as it was to write those sentences, it was even harder to keep my attention on this movie. Frakes may blame the fact that it bombed on it opening the same weekend as Spider-Man 2 and Shrek 2, but in reality I think this film suffered from too much studio interference – so much so that the original director and original writer quit.
Paxton is fun to watch as the “Iron Man”/”Batman”-esque superhero, but he’s largely in the periphery of the action. Sophia Myles (who went on to star in one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, “The Girl in the Fireplace”) is marvelous as “Miss Penelope”, as is Ron Cook as “Parker”. They have a fun bout of martial arts action with The Hood’s thugs halfway through, which is way better than the overwrought and cartoonish end battle. In fact, I couldn’t help regurgitating unpleasant memories of watching Richie Rich while trying to stomach through the climax.
This is a movie built by a committee of all the wrong people (“I have eight different bosses, Bob!”) and the result is something that’s utterly predictable, dumb and easily forgotten. I’m not blaming Frakes here – he did a decent job with what he was given. It’s a clear example of gluttonous studio people pushing too much input into a film that the end result is so bad even Gerry Anderson didn’t want to be associated with it.
