Kimberley Hurst It took me a while to get in to this film. It started of very slowly. When Alan was at the school with mini brains it looked like a fight was going to start with one of the other kids but they didn't focus on that. Instead in walks Lady Penelope (Sophia Myles-what a delight) to take Alan home. I thought that there could of been more focus at the school. I love the new improved Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (not really it's just that her very pink car can fly. I don't remember it doing that in the original. Bill Paxton and Ben Kingsley only just manage to carry the film through. I do have to say that the casting for the older Tracy Boys wasn't very good. They just didn't look right. All in all a good family film. Just enough to be 3 stars.

studioAT No, this film isn't great. There are too many changes from the original series to please fans and it is all a little bit too flash for it's own good BUT I still believe 10 years on from it's release this film remains good family entertainment.It's fast paced, it's exciting for kids (who were very much the target audience) and is a lot better than some of the dross family films we have to put up with.Yes,it would have been nice to see a bit more of the Tracey Brothers (telling which one is which is quite difficult) and making Alan younger and the star of the film isn't to everyone's taste but Sophia Miles as Lady Penelope more than makes up for it. Perhaps the only spot on bit of casting in the film.It's very much a family film but if you can get past the flaws (and it's taken me 10 years to be able to) I think you'll find a lot to like about this film.

Luxor imdb Extract from Gerry Anderson's interview at BBC in 2008 : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7655589.stmReporter : You were reportedly unhappy with the Thunderbirds film that was released in 2004. How do you feel about it now?Gerry Anderson : I was bitterly upset about that because I had been invited by the producer to discuss the possibility of acting as a consultant. But a few days later I had a letter saying: "I'm terribly sorry but we've got enough creative people on the payroll so we can't offer you anything." Four weeks before the premiere I got a call from Universal Pictures saying they would pay me $750,000 (£432,000) for me to attend and I turned it down. I could've done with that, but I couldn't bring myself to accept it and make false reports about it. I didn't go to see it, but about three months after somebody gave me a DVD and I watched it on my own. I thought it was disgraceful that such a huge amount of money was spent with people who had no idea what Thunderbirds was about and what made it tick.

johnstonjames i was surprised at how negatively received this movie was by 'Thunderbirds R Go' fanz. i mean it really wasn't all that bad. and i happen to be a babyboomer who was brought up watching the old retro TV show on Saturday mornings back in the sixties.the real debate here is probably not how faithfully this embodies the spirit of the old kidvid series, but whether are not the marionette freak show really justified a remake or a live action interpretation at all. like most retro junk entertainment the original show was what it was. it was hardly Tolstoy or high art in the first place. but babyboomers seemed to expect something better from this. only the good Lord knows why. i don't think much more could have been made out of this except to revive the Super Marionation technique and i don't see any point to that since that was what it was and couldn't be done any better than the original.the film itself is a innocent enough diversion, and in a time when children's entertainment becomes increasingly more crass and violent, it seems refreshingly wholesome and good spirited enough to be acceptable for young kids. i suppose older audiences will most likely perceive early on that no one is going to die, not even the villains and that a upbeat happy ending looms ahead. cynical, older kids will probably get impatient.for me the biggest plus here was the characterizations of Lady Penelope and her chauffeur Parker. they were faithful to the original and even included Lady P's marvelous big, pink, six wheeler, flying automobile. the actor who played Parker looked uncannily like his marionette counterpart.this film also had some very good, big budget CGI FX which utilized it's large 50 million dollar budget (eegads the movie only grossed 6 million?!oooooh. ouch.).i've always wondered how actors feel playing cartoon characters. i wondered here how Bill Paxton felt taking that a step further playing a character that was originally a puppet. personally i thought the puppet did his role better.i don't know what went wrong here with audiences and why on earth they expected more from this. i suppose more should have been done to appeal to a older babyboomer audience and not make this so much for the 'Spykids' age group.personally i don't think the film did all that bad. i think the problem was with the audience. it seems a good lot of babyboomers have been brainwashed into glorifying their entertainment drivel. if babyboomers want a more, sophisticated marionette movie, maybe they should be satisfied with 'Team America; World Police'.