Michael Sloan Movies

An teenage orphan and an intergalactic warrior join forces to prevent the world from being taken over by a ruthless race of aliens plotting to enslave mankind in this sci-fi action movie starring Mark Dacascos and Billy Zane. Rykker (Dacascos) is a benevolent alien who has become trapped on planet Earth. He's made it his mission to protect the human race from the evil Syndicate - an alien fifth column that is determined to claim Earth as their own. In the aftermath of a fierce highway battle between Rykker and a particularly troublesome gang of Syndicate agents, top Syndicate leader Saylon (Zane) arrives on Earth to construct the wormhole that will allow his warriors to launch a full-scale invasion. But in order to make that happen, ruthless Syndicate heavy Isis (Amelia Cook) must first gather the parts needed to assemble the portal. Upon hijacking a truck that is transporting the parts she needs, Isis makes the fatal mistake of murdering Julie (Emma Lahana)'s entire family. Now suddenly left alone in the world and determined to make Isis pay for her transgression, Julie teams with Rykker to take out the Syndicate at the highest level. But while Rykker doesn't believe that a human can help in the fight against such powerful otherworldly forces, Julie ultimately proves her worth by saving his life. Later, after a hair-raising cross country battle against Syndicate assassins, Rykker and Julie face off against Saylon and Isis in the volatile nuclear reactor where Saylon is constructing his interplanetary wormhole. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Max Havoc: Ring of Fire stars Mickey Hardt as the title character, a former professional kickboxer now working as a photographer. While at a stylish resort in order to snap pictures of a sporting event, Max discovers that the owner of the resort has connections to some very bad men. Soon he must fall back on his lethal skills in order to survive. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Based on the Classic novel by Jack London, Call of the Wild stakes its claim to being that rare breed of adventure series that parents and kids can enjoy together. Adapted by White Fang screenwriter David Fallon and starring Nick Mancuso, this exciting saga introduces Miles Challenger (Shane Meier) a 15-year old boy living in an Alaskan mining town at the turn of the century, whose whole life changes forever when he encounters a heroic and powerful dog named Buck.

A high-energy action adventure based on legend rather than historical fact finds Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) desiring to retire from law enforcement. With brothers Virgil (Sam Elliot) and Morgan (Bill Paxton), he arrives in Tombstone, Arizona intending to build his fortune. He discovers that long-time friend Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) is there and that the town is run by a group of brutal outlaws called the Cowboys. Earp, frustrated with his laudanum-addicted wife, begins a romance with traveling stage actress Josephine Marcus (Dana Delany). Meanwhile, the Cowboys terrorize the citizens of Tombstone unchecked.

When the town marshal is killed by a Cowboy, Earp steps in to prevent a lynching by an angry mob. He also refuses to hand the killer over to his fellows, beginning the enmity between the Cowboys and the Earp brothers. Virgil, overcome with guilt at doing nothing to help the Tombstone citizens, accepts the position of town marshal. With Wyatt and Morgan as his deputies, and the help of Doc, Virgil attempts to arrest several Cowboys, resulting in the famous OK Corral shoot-out. The Cowboys take revenge by ambushing two of the brothers and injuring Virgil and killing Morgan. The Earps leave town, apparently cowed. Wyatt returns, wearing the badge of a U.S. marshal, vowing to destroy every last Cowboy. He hunts them mercilessly, until the leader, Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) challenges Wyatt to a duel. While not regarded as an artistic masterpiece, "Tombstone" is considered the best of director George P. Cosmatos' prolific films. The all-star cast (including Thomas Haden Church and Billy Bob Thornton in small roles) delivers solid performances. Both William A. Fraker's cinematography and Bruce Broughton's stirring musical score are expertly designed for dramatic effect. Blood is shown liberally in several key scenes, but seems intended to show that there is nothing glorious in Wyatt Earp's actions, only necessity. He and his deputies take on the symbolism of the horsemen of the apocalypse -- dispensing judgement, and the Biblical references form a symmetry at the beginning and end of the film.
~ Lucinda Ramsey, All Movie Guide

In this western, a senator from New Mexico, who was once a marshal, heads for London to find the one who killed his niece, a research scientist who had been looking into the activities of an international chemical company. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast on the USA cable network, season three of the color revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents offers 24 new episodes. Unlike previous seasons, which were largely comprised of remakes from the old black-and-white Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the third season consists virtually in its entirety of "originals," specially written for the revival; indeed, only the episode "Prosecutor" is derived from the earlier series. The season opens with "A Very Careful Rape," starring Melissa Sue Anderson as an actress who uses cutting-edge technology to wreak vengeance on her rapist. Subsequent episodes are equally up-to-date in content, notably "A Stolen Heart," wherein the title "character" is held for ransom just before a transplant operation, and "Career Move," with David Cassidy well cast as a washed-up rock star who plans to revitalize his career in a macabre fashion. Other episodes are quite "traditionalist" in nature, as witness "You'll Die Laughing," starring Anthony Newley as a terminally ill comedian who tries to stage his suicide to look like murder, and the two-part "The Hunted," a cat-and-mouse thriller starring The Equalizer's Edward Woodward. And whereas the older Alfred Hitchcock Presents only rarely delved into the supernatural, the new version is top-heavy with such fantastic yarns as "Houdini and Channel Four," in which the ghost of the celebrated escape artist is summoned to rescue a contemporary kidnap victim. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Vietnam veteran Colonel Braddock had believed his Asian wife to be dead since the war, but he hears from a missionary that she is not only alive, but has a son. Soon, he returns to Vietnam to rescue them and others from a prison camp. This is the third Missing in Action film starring the well-known martial artist, Chuck Norris, as lethal hero Braddock. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Malcolm McDowell and Madolyn Smith star in this unusual science fiction thriller. A young woman alone in a remote cabin expects friends for dinner, but instead a man who has car trouble knocks at her door and asks her help in calling for a tow truck. She sees him the next day in the village and inexplicably takes a ride with him into the mountains. Their nocturnal romantic rendezvous turns into a bizarre night of manipulation and psychological game-playing. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Fifteen years after the cancellation of the tongue-in-cheek spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum were reunited in this made-for-TV movie. It all begins when Janus (Geoffrey Lewis), a former agent for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement (aka U.N.C.L.E.) joins forces with the evil rival agency T.H.R.U.S.H. Stealing the new H975 atomic bomb, Janus threatens to detonate the device unless a 350-million-dollar ransom is paid. But there is another condition: The ransom money must be delivered in person by Janus' old enemy, retitled U.N.C.L.E. operative Napoleon Solo (Vaughn), now a big-business executive. Despite never having heard of Napoleon Solo, U.N.C.L.E.'s new top agent, Benjamin Kowalski (Tom Mason), offers Solo the job, which he accepts, if only because he needs some quick cash. Deciding that the combined forces of Janus and ex-T.H.R.U.S.H. leader Justin Sepheran (Anthony Zerbe) may be a bit much for him -- after all, he is 15 years older -- Solo asks for, and receives, the assistance of his former partner, Illya Kuryakin (McCallum), now a prominent dress designer. Also figuring into the plot is Andrea Markovich (Gayle Hunnicutt), a Russian ballerina who may or may not be one of the villains. Despite some cute in-jokes and bantering byplay, this TV movie bears less resemblance to Man From U.N.C.L.E. than it does to the James Bond films, perhaps because writer/executive producer Michael Sloan reportedly only watched a handful of the original series' episodes before embarking on this project. One nice touch is the casting of former Avengers star Patrick Macnee as Solo and Illya's new superior, Sir John Raleigh. Originally telecast April 5, 1983, on CBS, The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. (subtitled "The 15 Years Later Affair") failed to deliver sufficient ratings to warrant the planned revival of the series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally intended as the pilot for a never-sold cop series titled Battles, this made-for-TV meller stars William Conrad as William Battles, a retired Los Angeles police detective spending his golden years in Hawaii. Somewhat bored by inactivity, Battles takes a job at a local college as assistant football coach and security chief. Not unexpectedly, our corpulent hero is soon up to his neck in a murder investigation, this time with a recent homicide bearing a remarkable resemblance to a similar killing in the 1940s (as described in a mock newsreel narrated by no less than Lowell Thomas). Assisting Battles in bringing the culprit to heel are his niece Shelby (Robin Mattson), collegiate football star Deacon Joe Jackson (Lane Caudell) and his own boss, Dean Mary Phillips (Marj Dusay). The Murder That Wouldn't Die debuted March 9, 1980, on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story, the Galactica is again attacked by a fleet of Cylon fighters. The crew's only hope of escape is through a space corridor past the ice planet Arcta--which is guarded by a Cylon pulsar cannon. Commander Adama (Lorne Greene) is ultimately forced to place the future of his space vessel in the hards of an army of criminals, led by Adama's son Apollo (Richard Hatch) and Apollo's best friend Starbuck (Richard Hatch). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A piece of made-for-television hack work that suddenly became sort of topical 23 years later, with the attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Evening in Byzantium was a two-part made-for-TV feature based very loosely on Irwin Shaw's best-seller. The book involved intrigue and romance at the Cannes Film Festival, but the television producers evidently thought that this did not justify a two-night prime time movie event, so they added a story about Middle Eastern terrorists using the Cannes Film Festival as part of a larger plot to attack the West. Glenn Ford plays Jesse Craig, a down-on-his-luck producer with a film project in mind involving terrorists, who goes to Cannes to raise money and finds himself dealing with his ex-wife (Shirley Jones) and romancing Erin Gray. But before too long, he uncovers a plot by real terrorists to replace commercial airliners in flight (blowing them out of the sky and taking over their authorized flight paths) with specially converted airliners and bomb targets in the United States. Also on hand is Vince Edwards, playing an actor with a radical political agenda, who is alarmed that Ford's proposed film parallels his own terrorist plans; Michael Cole as Ford's associate; Eddie Albert and Gloria De Haven as a couple with ties to the movie business; Harry Guardino as a skeptical American security officer; and Marcel Hillaire as the French police inspector trying to unravel the terrorists plans. It's all very silly, though played very sincerely by most of the cast, and none of the plot described is less plausible than the notion that Glenn Ford and Erin Gray could ignore the 36-year difference in their ages. Evening in Byzantium was originally shown in August of 1978 as part of the syndicated Operation Prime Time programming series, intended to compete with the three networks. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide