Max Elliott Slade Movies

"Houston, we have a problem." Those words were immortalized during the tense days of the Apollo 13 lunar mission crisis in 1970, events recreated in this epic historical drama from
Ron Howard. Astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) leads command module pilot Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and lunar module driver Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) on what is slated as NASA's third lunar landing mission. All goes smoothly until the craft is halfway through its mission, when an exploding oxygen tank threatens the crew's oxygen and power supplies. As the courageous astronauts face the dilemma of either suffocating or freezing to death, Mattingly and Mission Control leader Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) struggle to find a way to bring the crew back home, all the while knowing that the spacemen face probable death once the battered ship reenters the Earth's atmosphere. The film received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic critical response and a Best Picture nomination, but lost that Oscar to another (very different) historical epic, Mel Gibson's Braveheart. In 2002, the movie was released in IMAX theaters as Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience, with a pared-down running time of 116 minutes in order to meet the technical requirements of the large-screen format. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

The heroes of the family adventure comedy 3 Ninjas return in this sequel (though not all of them are played by the same actors). Rocky (Sean Fox), Colt (Max Elliott Slade), and Tum Tum (Evan Bonifant) are three brothers whose Grandfather (Victor Wong) is a ninja master teaching them martial arts skills. The boys' Little League team has a big game coming up, but before they can hit the diamond, they have to help Grandpa return a sacred Ninja dagger to Japan. However, one of Grandpa's longtime enemies, now a wealthy and ruthless businessman, plans to steal the knife, and the boys are sent on a mission to Japan to rescue the valuable weapon. At first the tycoon sends his inept nephew to face off against the young Ninjas, but when that plan fails, Rocky, Colt, and Tum Tum are met by a team of trained warriors, who to their surprise are led by a teenage girl named Miyo (Caroline Junko King). Miyo soon strikes up a friendship with the brothers who are supposed to be her sworn enemies, and with her help they recover the knife and teach her a few things about baseball that come in handy when the big game finally rolls around. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This feel-good ensemble comedy tracks a quartet of suburban siblings and their families over the course of a single summer. Hardworking Gil Buckman (Steve Martin) and his stay-at-home wife, Karen (Mary Steeenburgen), have just a few months to help their oldest son, Kevin (Jasen Fisher), overcome his high-strung behavior problems before he'll be relegated to special-education classes. Gil's difficult relationship with his own father, Frank (Jason Robards), has led him to become a would-be super-dad for his three kids, so he takes his son's difficulties more than a little personally. Gil's sister, Helen (Dianne Wiest), is trying to raise a moody, adolescent son (Leaf Phoenix) and an independent-minded daughter (Martha Plimpton) with no help from her well-off ex-husband, who's more interested in his new wife and family. Gil and Helen's sister, Susan (Harley Jane Kozak), meanwhile, must participate in the too-scripted Big Life Plans of her anal-retentive husband, Nathan (Rick Moranis), whose overachiever zeal infects even their toddler daughter. When long-lost brother Larry (Tom Hulce) show up with yet another get-rich-quick scheme, he brings with him a surprise addition to the family. Screenwriters Babaloo Mandel, Lowell Ganz, and Ron Howard negotiate their varied subplots with a deftness and comedic touch that transforms this conflicted clan into a suburban everyfamily. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi