Thunderbirds

Reconfigured to fit the lazily ubiquitous Spy Kids mold, Thunderbirds casts a wooden, sleepwalking Bill Paxton as the wealthy patriarch of the Thunderbirds, a family of adventurers who travel around the world in futuristic vehicles, rescuing people. The Thunderbirds have the disturbingly wholesome, apple-cheeked, all-American looks and synthetic peppiness of Mormon missionaries, as well as the personality, depth, and individuality of Star Wars stormtroopers. Then again, the Thunderbirds barely figure in much of the film, which dwells on the clan's youngest member (Brady Corbet), an aspiring Thunderbird whose strict father won't let him join the family business until he grows up.

Corbet gets a chance to prove himself when the rest of the family is stranded in space by telekinetic evil genius Ben Kingsley—no doubt drawing heavily on lessons learned during Gandhi—and Corbet and his pint-sized companions are called upon to save the day. Michael McCullers, who worked on Saturday Night Live, the Austin Powers sequels, and Undercover Brother, had a hand in Thunderbirds' script, but the film inexplicably plays things straight. It stingily doles out action sequences, largely neglecting the cool super-vehicles at the heart of the franchise's appeal, while sometimes resorting to wacky sound effects, that last refuge of the cinematically inept. Large, elaborate sets were built for the film, but Star Trek: The Next Generation fixture Jonathan Frakes obscures them with dim lighting, almost as if he's ashamed of what's onscreen. Frakes is no stranger to pop-culture phenomena that lurch on indefinitely, but Thunderbirds is a would-be franchise that deserves to be snuffed out in its infancy.

Keep scrolling for more great stories.