Reviews

I enjoyed this movie. I took my three girls today to watch it. I particularly enjoyed the various adult themes. I thought Noah the Elder did a good job as an elder of a reformed evangelical fellowship. The insular view was very apt for the basic theme that we're destroying the marine environment and over fishing the southern seas. Giving the elephant seals Australian accents was fantastic, especially the "crikey" from the late Steve Irwin. I especially enjoyed some of the snow riding scenes with Mumbles and his mates traversing the snow and ice at speed. The ending was a good attempt to integrate the main theme with a good ending but I think it could have been better. Sadly my 11 and 9 year olds who are reasonably bright children didn't quite get the ending and the thrust of the story line. It's our children who have to get these messages across to the numb skulls in power, so a bit more effort on the part of the writers may have helped.

I grew up (b. 1965) watching and loving the Thunderbirds. All my mates at school watched. We played "Thunderbirds" before school, during lunch and after school. We all wanted to be Virgil or Scott. No one wanted to be Alan. Counting down from 5 became an art form. I took my children to see the movie hoping they would get a glimpse of what I loved as a child. How bitterly disappointing. The only high point was the snappy theme tune. Not that it could compare with the original score of the Thunderbirds. Thankfully early Saturday mornings one television channel still plays reruns of the series Gerry Anderson and his wife created. Jonatha Frakes should hand in his directors chair, his version was completely hopeless. A waste of film. Utter rubbish. A CGI remake may be acceptable but replacing marionettes with Homo sapiens subsp. sapiens was a huge error of judgment.

While it was made for television and no one would really pay money to watch it, this program was compelling once you started watching. The good news is you don't have to be a soccer fan to watch it. Being a sports fan helps. You can translate the characters to any organised sport and expect to find similar characters there. The protagonists do a good job at getting the viewer to hate all those involved in the higher echelons of organised sport. It would not surprise me in the slightest to find characters similar to to those portrayed in real life in all sorts of sporting organisation ranging from the local cricket club to high level baseball.

This is an enjoyable movie. I expect many Australians will enjoy it even if they outwardly shun the crass basic humour. Kenny and his family can be found all over Australia. Hard working, happy with their lot but complicated because not everything has worked out as they had wanted. The fact the old man thinks 20 cents is still a valuable gift to a boy is hilarious. The first half of the movie is significantly funnier than the second half. The romantic bits and pieces with the flight attendant were necessary but too much of a fall in humour terms when compared to the introduction. There were some inaccuracies. I fly a lot and lately I've looked in all the toilets on every type of aircraft and cannot find any "clips" that Kenny alludes to. The best line for me was, "There is a smell in here that will outlast religion..."