Thunderbird 6

The second Thunderbirds movie is not that different from the original 1966 offering - bald bad guy the Hood's up to no good, lots of stuff gets blown up, the Tracey brothers scramble to save the world and, yet again, we don't get to see anywhere near enough of the very cool Thunderbird 2.

Entertaining if antiquated, what's interesting about Thunderbird 6 is that it could have been a very different movie. Between making the FAB films, creator Gerry Anderson conceived a new TV series 'Captain Scarlett And The Mysterons'. Every bit as enjoyable as Anderson's previous offerings, 'Captain Scarlett' scored over the likes of 'Stingray' and 'Supercar' courtesy of its more sophisticated, more realistic puppets (the captain himself being a dead ringer for Liverpool and Scotland defender and BBC panelist Alan Hansen).

Delighted with the new marionettes, Anderson seriously considered replacing his old Thunderbirds puppets with state-of-the-art dummies. Perhaps fearful of what the fans might think, the brains behind 'UFO' and, ahem, 'Space Precinct' decided to stick with his beloved original models.

Not that the clunky old school creations can spoil Thunderbird 6. On the contrary, they rather enhance the enjoyment of this, a slice of kid-friendly cinema made for a far more innocent age. And while its deficiencies are all to readily apparent (the string count is incredibly high), Thunderbird 6, like Thunderbirds Are Go before it, is a far better film than Jonathan Frakes's live action bomb, a film so bad it even managed to stuff up Barry Gray's incredible theme tune. And how was this seemingly impossible feat achieved? By letting Busted re-record it, that's how.