Alvin Sanders Movies

It has been 12 years since the meteor shower which all but devastated the rural Kansas community of Smallville in 1989. On that fateful evening, the parents of little Lana Lang were killed; Lex Luthor, son of billionaire business mogul Lionel Luthor (John Glover), was rendered totally bald; and on the farm of Jonathan and Martha Kent (John Schneider, Annette O'Toole), a spaceship landed, bearing a child from the planet Krypton. Now it is 2001: Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) is the high school homecoming queen; swinging bachelor Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) is in charge of his father's local fertilizer plant; and the alien child who crash-landed on the Kent farm has been raised as the couple's own son, Clark Kent (Tom Welling). Aware that their adopted son is possessed of awesome powers far beyond those of mortal men, Martha and Jonathan have raised Clark in a virtual cocoon, prohibiting him from participating in any sort of contact sports; as a result, the boy has the reputation of a gawky nerd, and is extremely self-conscious and full of trepidation about his place in the world. In this opening episode of the Superman-inspired TV series Smallville, teenager Clark Kent becomes a close friend of Lex Luthor after saving the young playboy's life, and also endeavors to protect Lana and the rest of his high school friends from an electrified lunatic who was victimized by a Halloween "hazing" on the same night that the meteors fell. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this Canadian/Japanese sci-fi actioner, the trouble begins as a boozy ex-cop tries to forget the horrible killing of his partner by the nefarious, white-wigged Nassim. The only job the cop can find now is as a janitor at a high-tech bio-research lab where they have been working on a super deadly virus. One night, Nassim and his cronies break into the high security installation so they can "cyberjack" the virus. They gain an evil edge by abducting the daughter of the head scientist and now only the janitor can save them all. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Gregg Champion, the son of dance stars Marge and Gower Champion, made his feature film directorial debut with this sitcom-influenced cop comedy. Dabney Coleman stars as Burt Simpson, a police detective one week short of retirement, who is told he has a rare blood disease called Wechsler's Curtain and that he will be dead within two weeks. Before receiving the dire news, Burt was the kind of guy who made it a point to be cautious when in pursuit of criminals. He also was unable to tell his wife (Teri Garr) that he loved her. But now that he has only two weeks to live, Burt undergoes a complete personality reversal -- much to the shock of his partner Ernie Dills (Matt Frewer). Burt throws his well-known caution to the wind and volunteers for double-duty in the city's most dangerous neighborhood to take on the notorious psychotic Carl Stark (Xander Berkeley). The reason for this sudden turnaround? Burt figures that if he is killed in the line of duty, his son can go to Harvard on the $320,000 worth of department insurance, rather than die after retirement and collect a paltry $22,000 on his regular insurance policy. Paradoxically, Burt finds that comedy is easy but dying is hard. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi