Fortress - Die Festung

"Fortress" is mostly routine, but enjoyable, futuristic sci-fi from director Stuart Gordon (of "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond" fame). It has an excellent cast of familiar faces that make the most out of what they've got, especially Kurtwood Smith ("RoboCop", 'That 70s Show'). There are acceptable levels of violence and gore, the production design and lighting are adequate, and Gordon does a very fine job with pacing and energy level. The producers originally wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger as the star, but he went on to do "True Lies" instead (it was Ah-nuld that suggested Gordon as the director of this feature).

Some interesting ideas are present in this tale of a husband and wife, John and Karen (Christopher Lambert and Loryn Locklin) who are expecting their second child, despite the fact that the law now forbids couples from having more than one kid. (They tried again because the first child was born dead.) They're caught and sentenced to do time at the "Fortress", a massive, multi leveled high tech prison. It's run by your standard issue sadistic warden, a man named Poe (Mr. Smith). John, forced into an overcrowded cell, makes plans with his cellmates to escape, although this place is supposed to be escape-proof.

Lambert is no better or worse than he usually is. Locklin is reasonably appealing. The supporting cast is pretty eclectic: Lincoln Kilpatrick ("Chosen Survivors", Renny Harlins' "Prison") as Abraham, Jeffrey Combs of the "Re-Animator" series (rocking a shoulder length wig here) as D-Day, Clifton Collins Jr. ("Tigerland", "Pacific Rim") as Gomez, Tom Towles ("House of 1000 Corpses", "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer") as Stiggs, and Vernon Wells ("The Road Warrior", "Commando") as Maddox. That's Gordons' actress wife Carolyn supplying the voice of the computer intelligence Zed-10. Smith, whose character will have some surprises in store, is an effective and not completely one-dimensional antagonist.

"Fortress" hits the ground running, and offers decent entertainment for a fairly trim 95 minute run time.

Seven out of 10.

Who knew that watching Raw Deal and then Fortress would make a fantastic over the top action doubleheader. Well, movie nerds and action aficionados, but not me. In my attempt to go through movies I should have seen by now, I bring you Fortress. A Stuart Gordon Sci-Fi action movie about a private underground supermax prison in the future year of 2017.

It is scary that I felt like there are things in this that I felt could have very much come about in that year. Private prisons, population control, cops killing civilians, half-human half-machine prison wardens made from the non-aborted babies of the prisoners...well one of those things may be a stretch.

Plot-wise, after being caught at the Canadian border trying to escape America with his wife who is pregnant with their second child. Chris Lambert gets arrested and thrown in an underground supermax prison in the middle of the desert. Here he is fitted with a device called the "Intestinator" which, when he is misbehaving or moving outside of where he should be will make his intestines explode. After finding out that his wife is alive and still pregnant, Lambert begins a weirdly convoluted way escaping which includes, using a hidden intestinator out of someone else stomach, his pregnant wife shacking up with the warden, and having his mind melted in a machine they use at theme parks. In the end, while the exploding people filled with blue goo are fun to watch, the move isn't really a thinker.

Although, there are a lot of creepy ideas in this. Since abortion is illegal the prisons keep the babies birthed from the women prisoners and meld them with machines as well as things they find on the floor to make the perfect hybrid human. The warden is a successful attempt at it, while the guards on are not. It a nice add-on that keeps the goofiness at bay just a bit.

I really enjoyed this film. I know there are a ton of flaws to it, and it kinds of looks like a sad grey tower of bland. Fortress just has too much weird and goofy to not be fun. Add in some hardcore violence, and exploding people and it's hard not to enjoy yourself.

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. (****/*****).

Stuart Gordon began his career as a director with Re-Animator, a classic horror comedy that has a huge cult status and deservedly so. Fortress was his first entry to non-horror oriented field, even though Fortress still has many horror elements, too. Christopher Lambert plays a military officer in the near future, where it is allowed to have only one child per couple. He and his wife broke that order and they are sentenced to high security modern prison Fortress, set in the middle of desert. There are many inmates there and everyone wants to get out, but if someone breaks the rules, the punishment will be death or torture by the sadistic boss and wardens..

This was surprisingly great film, and Gordon did fine job with the film. It was filmed entirely in Australia and the film was first big budget movie for Gordon. He said that he wanted to do a sci-fi action film with brains, too, and that he wanted to discuss some topical issues with his film. These issues are over population and alarming/scary development of technology, and even though the film is not too deep or philosophical, it has these aspects of commentary about society and our everyday world, and what it should not be. This is not as satiric or intelligent as Paul Verhoeven's Robocop, for instance, but still it is little more than just average blast 'em action film set in the future.

The settings are very great and technically this film is fantastic as there are no flaws in camera use and editing. This reminded me little bit of Robocop's future cities, and both films are marvelously staged. The action is plenty and it is exciting and professionally done and shot. Occasionally the film reminded me also of Paul Anderson's Soldier, the non-stop action mayhem film starring Kurt Russell. Christopher Lambert is not as multi leveled actor as possible, but still he has certain kind of charisma and he is easy to watch in his films. Kurtwood Smith played the bad guy in Robocop, and he plays bad guy in Fortress, too, but not as NEAR as bad as in Robocop's manic performance.

Due to the film's violence and fierce moments, this is pretty close to Paul Verhoeven's style of making action films, as couple of scenes are very violent and almost too violent for this kind of mainstream production, and as far as I know, this had to be trimmed by two violent scenes to get the R rating in US, and this slightly cut version has been released also on DVD in US and Europe. I saw the uncut version on VHS and there are couple of over-the-top bloody shootings and two gory stomach explosions, of which the second is VERY gory. It is easy to see the film is directed by the man behind the hilariously ultra gory Re-Animator. The violence in Fortress isn't funny in the tradition of Re-Animator; It is serious because the film itself is serious, not the kind of half comedy like Re-Animator.

The film is perhaps little too slow moving in the middle part but for most of the time, this works fine and pleased me very much, and proves the talent of Gordon in other genres than horror, too. I give this 7/10 rating and recommend this to anyone interested in sci-fi and action cinema. It's not a masterpiece but still very noteworthy piece of 90's science fiction and action cinema.

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.