Fortress

Its about a totalitarian society where people only have one chance at having a kid. They have this futuristic super max, with these ingestible detectors, and a computer mainframe warden. This film is great, watch for the scene with the d day computer virus, it is a classic. The character development, and acting is decent. Worth renting, I love this film.

I'll get this out of the way first: the budget of this film isn't fantastic. Nearly all of the action takes place in the titular Fortress, which consists of a handful of sets used two or three times over. There is also a truly awful make up job - a 'tattoo' that more resembles an enthusiastic black marker.

That aside...

Despite said bad make up, Fortress features some extremely good practical effects. While avoiding spoilers, some very messy deaths are involved with characters being literally blown apart. These look frankly fantastic, especially (as I'm sure you've heard from every other critic ever) compared to CGI deaths in PG-13 films today. There's something visceral and authentic about them...the idea that what you're seeing is really happening.

And despite being restricted to one location, Fortress certainly makes the most of what it has. The Fortress is very well designed, packed with containment systems that the protagonist turns against it. Granted, there is some silliness involved - apparently, there is only one non-lethal way to subdue prisoners, and after that it's straight on to 'blow-to-bits'. But -and this is important- all of it is for a reason. You don't get the sense that something is there just to facilitate someone using it to escape, and indeed the design appears to be based on a real-life idea from Britain - the Panopticon, emphasising prisoners' fear of being watched more than actual effort spent watching them.

Characters, then. Honestly, Christopher Lambert's acting is the worst part of the film. In fact, I get the impression that a certain sequence was made just for him, since all he needs to do is zone out for a few hours. It's as if his batteries ran out one day, but the crew had to keep filming so they quickly wrote in an in-story excuse. His character isn't that interesting either - ex-army, highly decorated, a typical 90s interchangeable backstory with little impact on the plot. However, this is more than made up for by the antagonist, Prison Director Poe.

Unlike normal villains of the genre, Poe isn't a cartoon character given form - indeed, Kurtwood Smith is rather subdued even by normal villain standards, contrasting with his earlier role as Clarence Boddicker. And also unlike Boddicker, Poe's actually a fairly interesting character - though an aloof, even sadistic Warden, we do see what little personal life he has, and are continually reminded in his scenes that he's still a person - he has tastes, even loves, and by the end of the film it's not even clear whether he's the real bad guy. The rest of the supporting cast do an okay job - I can't think of a stand out performance though everyone does their jobs well. Honourable mention goes to the writers and the director for giving a female character many good action scenes and half of a subplot, even when it would have been incredibly easy to neglect her as post-victory booty.

The setting, I should mention, has a very nice atmosphere. Too many films forget that these days, instead going for a more realistic, bland appearance - comparing the first and second of Nolan's Batman trilogy shows it blatantly. Fortress has a dark, smoky look, which helps greatly both to maintain an oppressive, cyberpunk feel, and hide bad FX which is a nice bonus.

This isn't a 'bad but fun film' in my opinion, though some may see it that way. It has that look, sure, and if the creators had cast Arnie in the role then it well may have turned out like that. But it has some depth - beyond the exploding bodies and in places absent acting there is thought. If anything, I'd liken it to a Paul Verhoeven film - entertaining, but still immersive, maybe even though provoking.

In the Grim Future on 2017... When the planet is been overpopulated and crimes has been rising. One of the new laws states that a couple are allowed to have one child now, even if the new born baby dies at birth. When John Brenneck (Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen (Loryn Locklin) broken the law, when his wife finds himself pregnant after losing their first child at birth. When John's wife escapes from the U.S. Border, John finds himself sent in Prison for over 30 years. But this "Fortress" is controlled by a cold hearted if odd Prison Warden Poe (Kurtwood Smith). This prison is very strict, inmate's are controlled by a small explosive devices that are blasted into the digestive system via the throat and robotic controlled security devices that could look into the inmates dreams. Now John and other prisoners (Clifton Collins Jr., Jeffery Combs, Lincoln Kilpartick & Tom Towles) tires to find other ways to escape the Fortress but John finds out that his pregnant wife is captured and is kept in Poe's working area.

Directed by Stuart Gordon (Edmond, Re-Animator, Stuck) made an entertaining high concept low-budget Science Fiction adventure. This is probably the biggest budget that the independent filmmaker Gordon had to work with at $12 Million. Which it was originally going to be a bigger budgeted movie if Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast in the lead but Schwarzenegger went on to do "True Lies" instead. The actors gives good performances (especially Smith) and the feature has some fascinating ideas.

This is update from March 25, 2013 for the Blu-ray. Blu-ray from Echo Bridge has an pretty good anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1) transfer and an fine DTS 2.0 HD Sound. There is no special features from this Blu-ray.

"Fortress" was an box office disappointment, when it was first released in the fall of 1993. But the feature was an international success and the sequel was produced (It was watchable but poorly produced sequel). This is One of Gordon's best movies and it's certainly worth seeing. (****/*****).

First of all, lets get one thing straight: Christopher Lambert makes B-movies. I've never seen him in anything that wasn't a B-movie, and as far as I know, he hasn't done one single non-B-movie for his entire career. This particular B-movie, however, is more interesting and entertaining than that of the typical B-movie; the story revolves around a few people in the not-too-distant future(the year 2017, if I remember correctly) who are in a futuristic gigantic prison, which is said to be impossible to break out of. So, naturally they try to break out. The plot is OK, it moves along at a pretty good pace, never really loses your interest or bores you. The acting is all bad, but what do you expect from a B-movie? It has plenty of action to keep you distracted from the horrid acting, so it probably won't bother that many people. The characters are all cliches, but, again, what do you expect? The action and sci-fi parts of the film are reasonably entertaining, and pretty good for a B-movie. The film depicts a gloomy futuristic fascist world, but that's nothing that hasn't been seen many times before. All in all, a pretty typical B-movie, just a notch higher in quality than most others. I recommend it to fans of action/sci-fi B-movies and/or Christopher Lambert. 6/10

Well, it may not be everyone's cup of tea and it certainly has it's flaws - but for me at least, Fortress is one of the most fun B-movies released in the nineties, and that's no surprise considering it's helmed by the great Stuart Gordon! One of the main reasons why Fortress works so well is because it puts its focus in one place and every imaginative element of the film goes towards furthering the central plot. The title refers to the impregnable privately owned prison of the title. We are introduced to this penitentiary and its various pitfalls right from the start and while it's not hard to see where the film is going to go, it does at least make you wonder how it's going to get there. The central characters are John and Karen Brennick - a couple sent to the Fortress after she becomes pregnant with a second child, thus breaking a futuristic population control law. However, John isn't happy to just rot away in jail, and despite the numerous pitfalls that makes the Fortress escape proof - along with his fellow prisoners, he plots to escape with his wife.

The basis of Fortress is your classic prison escape movie, the only difference being the prison at the centre of the tale. The Fortress itself is certainly made good use of as the inventive methods in place to stop the prisoners escaping are constantly kept at the forefront of the audience's mind. The film really is never boring for a minute; if there isn't something directly going on in the movie then Gordon is using the time to build up the situation that the prisoners find themselves in. The film features a good B-movie cast, with 'Highlander' Christopher Lambert taking the lead role. Lambert is hardly a great actor, but he at least looks the part and his athleticism serves him well. Loryn Locklin isn't given much to do as the leading lady, but the rest of the support cast includes the likes of Lincoln Kilpatrick, Vernon Wells (who, coincidently, was also in the 1986 Australian movie of the same title!) and Jeffrey Combs, who is just great as always. Kurtwood Smith is probably the biggest standout, however, as the maniacal head of the Fortress. This film really features everything you could ever want from a B-movie - constant action, imagination and some hilarious performances. It all boils down to a suitably over the top climax and while this might not be the best film ever made - its one hell of a lot of fun and I certainly recommend it!