Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds is a 2004 British-American science fiction action-adventure film directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by William Osborne and Michael McCullers, and based on the 1960s TV series Thunderbirds created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. The film's plot concerns the Hood, who traps International Rescue (IR) leader Jeff Tracy and four of his sons on board the damaged Thunderbird 5 to steal the other Thunderbirds vehicles and commit heists that IR will be blamed for, prompting Jeff's youngest son Alan and his friends Tin-Tin and Fermat to stop him. Unlike the original TV series, which combined puppetry and scale-model visual effects in a filming style dubbed "Supermarionation", the film was made in live-action with CGI effects. Released on 20 July 2004 in the United Kingdom and 30 July 2004 in the United States, the film received negative reviews from critics, who disparaged its wooden characters and thin plot, and was also a box-office bomb. Gerry Anderson also criticised the film, describing it as "the biggest load of crap I have ever seen in my entire life", although Sylvia Anderson praised it as a "great tribute" to the series. The film's soundtrack includes the songs "Thunderbirds Are Go" by pop-rock band Busted, which peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart and later won the 2004 UK Record of the Year award and "Take Me Away" by Caleigh Peters which was used for other countries excluding the UK. Plot In 2010, the Tracy family, led by widowed former astronaut Jeff Tracy, operate International Rescue (IR), a secret organization that aids those in need during disasters using technologically advanced machines called Thunderbirds, operating out of Tracy Island in the South Pacific. Youngest son Alan attends Wharton Academy, a boarding school in Massachusetts, with his best friend Fermat Hackenbacker, son of the Thunderbirds’ resident engineer Brains, and dreams of being a Thunderbird pilot like his older brothers Scott, John, Virgil, and Gordon.