Buy it... if you want to hear Hans Zimmer's synthetic and dramatic sensibilities modernize Barry Gray's brightly optimistic children's comedy style for the original concept on television.

Avoid it... if you detest the stock music of John Debney and Robert Rodriguez for this genre, because Thunderbirds is adequately snazzy and heroic but also largely derivative of the Spy Kids franchise sound.

Zimmer

Thunderbirds: (Hans Zimmer/Ramin Djawadi) When the original "Thunderbirds" television series aired from 1964 to 1966 in Britain, it used a technique called "supermarionation" that combined marionettes, models, and special effects to create the illusion of live-action actors and big budget action sequences. The story of the series featured the special task force of the Tracy family, residing on a remote, lush Pacific island and utilizing five glitzy and sophisticated "Thunderbird" vehicles that could be called upon by world governments in a pinch to save humanity, all the while doing so in relative obscurity. The fantasy show ran for only 32 episodes and was made into two subsequent (but not very popular) films in the 1960's. The franchise remained dormant for decades, but Universal, having witnessed the awesome success of the Spy Kids franchise in the early 2000's, decided to fund a live-action pilot film for Thunderbirds that it hoped would spawn a franchise of profitable ventures. In keeping with the formula that brought triumph to the Spy Kids films, the ages of the boys in this adaptation of Thunderbirds were a bit younger to appeal to the pre-teen crowd. Even more interestingly, the production remained loyal to the brightly colored and cartoonish nature of the vehicles, choosing not to update the technology or radically reinvent the five majors at the center of the story. That said, loyalists of the concept had a uniformly allergic reaction to the 2004 film, joining critics in blasting the alterations made to the storyline. The movie only grossed half of its production budget during its theatrical release, a stunning failure that, along with the absence of a supportive cult following, killed the franchise's future aspirations. Even if you weren't among those who objected to the revisions to the concept, anyone who found the television series intolerably silly was likely to find the 2004 version, as with the Spy Kids movies, to be too cheesy for their tastes. Director Jonathan Frakes had been reported as being an enthusiast of Hans Zimmer's music at the time, leading to wild but baseless speculation about the composer's possible participation in scoring one of the later Star Trek projects that appropriately were instead handled by Jerry Goldsmith before his death.

For Zimmer, Thunderbirds was yet another opportunity to venture into a type of project that he had never attempted before. Despite his extensive experience in the animated realm, the children's comedy genre was foreign territory for the composer, and his involvement with Thunderbirds was a source of cautiously optimistic curiosity for Zimmer collectors. He had previously mentioned that his 1992 score for Radio Flyer was exactly this type of challenge, and in both that instance and Thunderbirds, Zimmer approached the assignments by diving into them one note at a time and just seeing what happens. In both cases, his performance turned out for the better, though it should be mentioned that a fair amount of compositional duties for the 2004 film was handled by rising Media Ventures/Remote Control assistant Ramin Djawadi, whose lack of proper acknowledgement in this particular collaborative effort qualified him as a "ghostwriter" in the usual Zimmer sense. Specific cue by cue credit for Djawadi is not clear, though despite his involvement, there are other points of comparison between Thunderbirds and Radio Flyer that could easily arise for experienced Zimmer listeners. If you set aside the fact that Radio Flyer was a terrible film for its subject matter, its score still had an undeniably and almost sickeningly charming and upbeat personality. Thunderbirds is very much the same way, constantly reaching for the next major key note of heroic intent, the next statement of overly positive melody, the next tingling sound effect or snazzy drum pad loop. The score mimics the bright and cheesy elements of the film in the same ways that the film attempted to mimic the general attitude of the television series, leading to a predictable but effective end. When you boil it down to its core, Thunderbirds was Zimmer's first large scale slapstick action score, taking inspiration from the foundations of Carl Stalling and Raymond Scott and infusing John Debney-like contemporary synthetics and a touch of the masculinity that defines much of his work. Mostly gone are the broad electronic swooshes that you hear in his concurrent score for King Arthur and in their place are cookie-cutter children's action cues that border on Debney's silliness at their best and Zimmer's own Toys at the worst. It's certainly superior in cohesiveness and character than Madagascar, the disastrous effort by Zimmer and his crew the following year.

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In both its style and structures, Thunderbirds is Zimmer's merging of My Favorite Martian and Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 3 into a serviceable but not particularly special score. Zinging sound effects, electronic choppiness, and short bursts of orchestral energy are often set over looped synthetic rhythms. In many ways, Zimmer has produced the stereotypical Debney score in its loyalty to orchestral action while also using the electronics to reach for an appeal to younger audiences, and the latter array sometimes overpowers the organic elements, especially when the faux-futuristic sound effects are mixed so far at the front of the soundscape that you might be inclined to swat at them like buzzing insects. The score does dissolve into mayhem at times, though its demeanor is consistently intuitive throughout. Thematic development is limited to a new, heroic anthem of generic perkiness and a villain's theme introduced in "The Hood" that stomps around in three-note brass references later in the score that will make you wonder if marching Orcs from Middle Earth are somewhere in this plot. A few clarinet passages throughout the score struggle to build heart in an otherwise static adventure atmosphere. Zimmer doesn't really make great use of the classic the Barry Gray television theme for the concept, though he does re-establish the idea at the beginning in authentic tones during the album's opening track. He finally puts his own awesomely robust and cool spin on the melody in "F.A.B.," the final instrumental track on the album. The score does solidify the prowess of its orchestral performances in the last three cues, with "Major Disaster" and "Bank of England" providing the only lengthy and substantial connections to Zimmer's usual choral depth and broad brass expressions. Overall, the score is a strong one for Zimmer and his crew, but it suffers from the normal listenability challenges inherent in the children's comedy genre. It is Spy Kids music on a slightly larger scale, and it's difficult to envision hardcore Zimmer collectors warming up to that generic tone for a 50-minute presentation apart from the film. Aside from the Busted song performance of "Thunderbirds Are Go" at the end (with gain levels far too loud for the rest of the album, though perhaps that is simply due to the song's insanely ridiculous drum and cymbal slamming), there are no major detractions in that running time. Still, the score offers only about ten minutes of truly interesting thematic material from Zimmer that stands apart from this otherwise stock modernization of the Barry Gray genre sound. When retreating to a deserted tropical island, take only the final dozen minutes from this score with you. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.09 (in 80 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.08 (in 253,581 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.