Thunderbirds

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Thunderbirds ★½ 2004 (PG)

Thunderbirds are go! Nobody's really sure why, since it's a 40-year-old British TV show about creepy puppets (remember “Supermarionation”?) rescuing other, equally creepy puppets. This version is liveaction but it's still wooden. Billionaire exastronaut Jeff Tracy (Paxton) lives on an island in the South Pacific with his five sons (all named after astronauts) and five specially designed aircraft. He uses the Thunderbirds to run International Rescue. Telekinetic evil guy, The Hood (Kingsley), is bent on world domination (what else?) and strands Dad and the four older boys on their orbiting space station, leaving youngest wannabe Thunderbird Alan (Corbett) and a couple of his pals to save the day. The 10-and-under crowd may be persuaded to sit through this harmless but lackluster adventure. 94m/C DVD . US Bill Paxton, Brady Corbet, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Edwards, Sophia Myles, Ron Cook, Genie Francis, Lou Hirsch, Nicola Walker, Johannes Zadrozny, Soren Fulton, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, Philip Winchester, Dhobi Oparei, Kyle Herbert, Dominic Colenso, Ben Torgersen, Lex Shrapnel; D: Jonathan Frakes; W: Peter Hewitt, William Osborne, Michael McCullers; C: Brendan Galvin; M: Hans Zimmer.