Credit: Far Out / Thomas Hawk
Sun 23 August 2026 19:15, UK
Every so often, you stumble across a film that, above anything, leaves you confused. I don’t mean in the sense that you can’t wrap your head around the plot (like watching David Lynch’s Inland Empire for the first time), but rather, you can’t figure out who the hell the film was even made for.
A good movie needs to know who its target audience is, and when that is glaringly unclear, it’s almost guaranteed that the film will fail. There are many great films out there that are equally beloved by children and adults alike, but sometimes, they don’t quite hit the mark, failing to become popular with either age group. Roger Ebert identified such a flaw in a certain 2004 movie, which he rated a lousy one and a half stars.
The writer, who became one of America’s leading voices in the world of film criticism, really disliked the Jonathan Frakes-directed Thunderbirds, which was inspired by the hit British series of the same name that was popular back in the 1960s. While the pioneering show featured electronic marionettes, which was followed by various movies, like Thunderbirds Are Go from 1966, this 2000s film adaptation took a live-action approach, leaving it far removed from the series’ iconic legacy.
The issue was, turning a British kids’ show famous for its innovative puppetry into a live-action Hollywood movie just wasn’t going to work. While Thunderbirds was intended to suit a younger audience, what good was it when Americans weren’t familiar with the original series, no matter their age? What’s more, a good children’s film should appeal to adults, and this film had none of the greatness that made the ’60s series popular across generations.
Ebert summed up the problems with the film in his review, asking, “What in the h-e-double-hockey-stick they were thinking of when they signed up for Thunderbirds”, in reference to the movie’s stars, Bill Paxton and Ben Kingsley. “My bet is that Paxton will grin sheepishly and Kingsley will twinkle knowingly, and they’ll both say the movie looked like fun, and gently steer the conversation toward other titles,” the critic added.
He went on to explain that “this is a movie made for an audience that does not exist, at least in the land of North American multiplexes: Fans of a British TV puppet show that ran from 1964 to 1966”.
While the show was a huge success upon its release several decades prior, airing in over 60 countries, it clearly didn’t hit America. “I had never heard of the series and, let’s face it, neither have you,” said Ebert.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
The movie was a major box office bomb, losing tens of millions of dollars. The fact that Busted recorded a song for it really says it all. Nothing was going to save this poor excuse for a movie, which Ebert hit out at with some rather uncompromising words.
He pondered, “Thunderbirds is to Spy Kids as Austin Powers is to James Bond. It recycles the formula in a campy 1960s send-up that is supposed to be funny. But how many members of the pre-teen audience for this PG movie are knowledgeable about the 1960s Formica-and-polyester look? How many care? If the film resembles anything in their universe, it may be The Jetsons.“
