What's On: Screen previews

SCI FI
Terminator Salvation
Christian Bale

The year is 2018. Judgment Day has come and gone, levelling civilisation.

An army of Terminators roams the post-apocalyptic landscape, killing or collecting humans where they hide. But small groups of survivors have organised into a Resistance, hiding in underground bunkers and striking when they can against an enemy force that vastly outnumbers them.

Only one man saw Judgment Day coming: John Connor (Christian Bale).

Now the world is on the brink of the future that Connor has been warned about all his life.

But something new has shaken his belief that humanity stands a chance of winning this war: the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger from the past whose last memory is of being on death row before awakening in this strange, new world. Connor must decide whether Marcus can be trusted.

Connor and Marcus must find common ground to take a stand against the onslaught - to meet the enemy head-on.

"We're telling the story of the world after Judgment Day," says director McG.

"This is the story of the becoming of John Connor. This is the moment when mankind takes a stand against the machines."

ROMANCE
Last Chance Harvey (12A)
Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson

Oscar-laden duo Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson team up for this London-set romance which gives hope to all those who thought a quickening of the heart was the stuff of youngsters.

Writer-director Joel Hopkins comes fresh from his warmly received debut Jump Tomorrow to helm this flick.

New Yorker Harvey Shine (Hoffman) is about to lose his job and has already lost the affection of his soon-to-be-married daughter.

At an airport bar he strikes up conversation with Kate (Thompson). Their unexpected connection sparks new life in them both.

DRAMA
Shadow In The Sun (12A)
Jean Simmons, James Wilby

Jean Simmons made a brief return to Britain to star in this low-key and gentle family drama set in Norfolk in the late '60s.

Simmons plays Hannah who lives alone in a remote house surrounded by open skies and verdant landscapes.

When Hannah's son Robert (James Wilby) visits with his family he is shocked by Hannah's intimacy with a young stranger, Joe, who provides her with drugs to soothe her ailments.

The rancour grows when Robert's daughter Kate becomes interested in Joe herself and is beset by jealousy.

But when Kate's young brother Sam nearly drowns, the crisis forces the family finally to come together.