Michelle Ryan Movies
Prior to her role as the new Bionic Woman, U.K. audiences were familiar with British actress Michelle Ryan thanks to her five-year run (2000-2005) as Zoe Slater on the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders. After she left that series, a role in Sean Ellis' moderately successful indie comedy Cashback (2006), as Suzy, the ex-girlfriend of Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) gained her some notice on the festival circuit, and U.K. audiences saw more of her on the modern-day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde retelling Jekyll. It wasn't until her resuscitation of Jaime Sommers in the late-2007 NBC revamp of the 1970s adventure drama The Bionic Woman, however, that Ryan achieved significant international notice. Unfortunately, the series stumbled after initially drawing an impressive audience, and once the production was halted due to the writers' strike -- after only eight episodes had aired -- the show failed to be renewed. That same year, Ryan also appeared in the features Flick and I Want Candy. The former is a British horror picture about a psychotic, rampaging 1950s rock & roll rebel, the latter, a smarmy sex comedy about a couple of college students who get in over their heads when attempting to produce a porno film with a sleazy starlet (Carmen Electra) as their lead. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Robert Louis Stevenson's influential tale of terror gets a modern re-imagining in this limited BBC series penned by Steven Moffat (Dr. Who, Coupling) and starring James Nesbitt. The year is 2007, and Dr. Tom Jackson (Nesbitt) just can't seem to reign in his murderous alter ego Mr. Hyde. While the two dueling personalities have stricken up a tenuous agreement to share the same body, the good doctor vows to use every technology at his disposal in order to contain the killer within. By using surveillance equipment and making a veritable deal with his own Devil, Dr. Jackman is certain that he can keep Mr. Hyde in check. But somewhere out there, Dr. Jackman and Mr. Hyde's every move is being monitored by an organization whose limitless wealth is only exceeded by their vast power. It seems that Mr. Hyde is no mistake of science and, much to Mr. Jackman's surprise, a plan hatched over a century ago is finally starting to unfold just like clockwork. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Nesbitt
Tom Riley, Tom Burke, Carmen Electra and Michelle Ryan co-star in British director Stephen Surjik's smutty sex comedy I Want Candy. The picture concerns two film students Baggy (Burke) and Joe (Riley), enrolled at a university in Leatherhead, England. The pair just recently completed a script that they plan to shoot for their graduation thesis, and want to use it to break into the British movie industry. Alas, their professor informs them of a two-minute imposition on the length of the thesis film. Discouraged, Joe and Baggy head off on a trip to London, where they attempt to solicit the interest of producers in the script - but they only succeed in catching the eye of a porn mogul, Doug Perry (Eddie Marsam) who agrees to finance the project if and only if they will turn it into a porno feature and talk ingénue Candy Fiveways (Electra) into starring. Undaunted, the boys set off to locate Candy and convince her to perform in their movie. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
A remake of the popular 1970s fantasy/adventure series of the same name, NBC's Bionic Woman starred Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers, the character originally played by Lindsay Wagner. In the earlier series, Jaime was a professional athlete; in the new version, she was a bartender and soon-to-be unwed mother. No matter: In both instances, Jaime was involved in a terrible accident which required emergency surgery--and a complete electronic overhaul. At the behest of her boyfriend Dr. Anthros (Chris Bowers), the first of several characters created for the remake, Jaime was rushed to a secret research lab, where she was outfitted with a pair of bionic legs and a bionic right arm, both of which provided super-strength and the ability to run in slow motion (representing extraordinary speed). She also was endowed with super-hearing skills--and, in an improvement over the original series, a new bionic eye (needless to say, the bill for all this retooling was considerably higher than the six-million-dollar price tag in the earlier show). Whereas the 1970s edition of Bionic Woman was, for all its gimmickry, a fairly straightforward action-adventure offering, the remake bore the heavy influence of 24 and Lost, accommodating a plethora of mysterious conspiracies and sinister secrets which weaved their way through the proceedings, with bits and pieces of vital information revealed on a "need-to-know" basis. There was also a soupcon of the Spiderman movie formula, with a dash of Smallville folded in, as Jamie slowly, awkwardly and sometimes painfully adjusted to her new and awesome powers, and to the responsiblities and consequences attached to them. The cast of characters in the new Bionic Woman included Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrer), the enigmatic (and slightly satanic) head of the Bionics research program; Ruth Truewell (Molly Price), Bledsoe's slightly more scrupulous assistant; maverick "program advisor" Antonio Pope (Isaiah Washington), the resident "I know more than I'm letting on" guy; and Jaime's computer-hacker sister Becca (Lucy Hale), who was always in trouble with the cops. This Bionic Woman joined NBC's Wednesday-night lineup on September 26, 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michelle Ryan, Miguel Ferrer, (more)
A young insomniac attempts to cope with his sleepless nights by taking a job at a local supermarket, only to discover that he possesses a curious coping mechanism in the debut feature from Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Sean Ellis. Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) has recently been dumped by his girlfriend, and in his grief he has lost his ability to sleep through the night. When Ben takes a job at the supermarket and makes the acquaintance of an odd collection of individuals, including silly slackers Barry (Michael Dixon) and Matt (Michael Lambourne) and aspiring kung fu master Brian (Marc Pickering), he begins to find his imagination taking flight in a most unusual manner. It seems that Ben has the ability to literally stop time, a talent that allows him to take pause, traverse the supermarket aisles, and ponder both his own life and the existence of the customers who stand frozen and completely unaware of his presence. As much a dreamer as Ben may be, however, his willingness to maintain his connection to the tangible, if slightly antiseptic, world he currently inhabits soon finds the wistful dreamer forming a close connection with disarmingly straightforward checkout girl Emily (Emilia Fox), whose solid ties to reality serve to offer a healthy contrast to the fantasy-prone insomniac's surreal form of escapism. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sean Biggerstaff, Emilia Fox, (more)
- 2004
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The trouble-making Slater siblings -- Kat (Jessie Wallace), Lynn (Elaine Lordan), Zoe (Michelle Ryan), and Little Mo (Kacey Ainsworth) -- look back at their years of causing a commotion on Albert Square in this collection of classic moments from the British television series EastEnders. In EastEnders: The Slaters, the gals start a ruckus at a school dance and are put in detention, and they while away the time by recalling some of the memorable events that have come their way over the years. This release also includes an unseen alternate ending for the trial of Little Mo, as well as a look at the production of the show. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
