“Thunderbirds” are no go.
August 21, 2004It took longer than I would have thought for Thunderbirds to make its way to the dollar theater. It died a pretty quick death at the regular first-run theaters. And now that I’ve finally seen it, I understand why.
I went in wanting to like this–Jonathan Frakes directed it and he is responsible for one of the better Star Trek movies, First Contact. And both Bill Paxton and Ben Kingsley are fine actors. But what they’ve done is created a kid’s movie from a 1960’s-era puppet show that is loved by mostly adult geeks.
To me that’s where the failure here lies–there’s not enough appeal to adults, the very ones who would remember and loved the original TV series. There’s some moments, where for example they’ve clearly dumbed-down the special effects to make them look like the plastic-models-on-string effects from the original. But then the rest of the time it’s full of modern computer-generated effects and modern dumbed-down plot about the youngest Tracy kid having to prove himself against the evil Ben Kingsley.
Big disappointment, though for $2 at the dollar theater it wasn’t a complete waste of money. I got to eat the Movie Meal, $3 for a little bucket of popcorn and a tiny kid-size drink. Very nice, it’s just unfortunate the movie was no good.
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