Die Festung II: Die Rückkehr

Sci-Fi fans love to think they are so smart sometimes. Everyone keeps bashing this movie for the scene where the main character survives in space without a spacesuit. To be honest, I have not seen the movie, so I do not know how long he spends in space, however I registered on IMDb just to point out that it may actually be possible to survive in the vacuum of space for a short time. See The Straight Dope for more details on that: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_147.html. Moreover, having a character survive a short time in space without a suit is not an unusual plot device. It was done in 2001: A Space Odyssey and also Event Horizon, and probably others. The concept is certainly not any more outrageous than diving through a plate glass window without suffering massive lacerations and not any more outrageous than a huge number of other physics-ignoring-action that Hollywood puts into movies every single day.

This is a Prison movie with high-tech science fiction , following to ¨The fortress¨ directed by Stuart Gordon in which Lambert is imprisoned because another son was born and in the future it's prohibited . In a futuristic USA , it's forbidden to give birth to more than one child for each woman and then things go wrong . The motion picture is supposed to take place 7 years after the former , as John (Christopher Lambert) is a rebel whom the resistance asking for help , but he escapes to avoid the authorities in USA , which is exactly what he and his wife Karen Brennick (Beth Toussiant replacing Loryn Locklyn) were trying to do when with her second son (their first child was born dead) escape . When they think they have made it , he is discovered and put to prison . With those odds , John still plans to getaway . Prison's chief (Patrick Malahide , replacing Kurtwood Smith) , located in a space station , is a villain who punishes to inmates with tortures and using cruel technological security measures . This is a modern and more sophisticated prison called the "Fortress" where the prisoners are controlled by lasers , neutron-cannons , cameras , mind-scanners and electronic pain-causing devices in their stomachs . John/Christopher Lambert along with other prisoners (Liz May Brice , Nick Brimble , John Sharian) will face off the prison director (Patrick Malahide) and his wardens (Okumoto).

The picture blends thrills , suspense , violence , drama, action ,struggles and some nudism . It is set 7 years after the original when rebels are captured and sent to a new fortress prison , in outer space , there takes place an exciting final confrontation between the starring and baddies , it is very stimulating and gets some exciting surprises . Special appearance of the Blaxploitiation goddess , Pan Grier . Runtime film is adequate , it is fast moving and is neither boring , nor tiring , but bemusing . Atmospheric cinematography and adequate score fitting to action by Christopher Franke . The motion picture obtained little success and failed at Box office . This second part bears a similar plot to previous entry , but isn't as nice as the first . The picture was regularly directed by Geoff Murphy who also realized the second installment to ¨Young guns¨ with more success than this one . The film will appeal to Science fiction buffs and Christopher Lambert fans . Rating : 5/10 , average .

I had no idea that a sequel was even being made to the 1993 movie until a few days ago. I arrived at the cinema complex where I work and was totally shocked to discover that a Fortress 2 had been released! The film was officially released in Australia on 2. March, 2000, but I'm afraid it hasn't been too popular...

We're only screening it in one small cinema and, so far, we've probably had about 200 patrons in four days (and that's being generous). Considering the fact that our largest cinema seats 500 for one session, this is not good popularity odds.

It was released suddenly, without advertisements or even posters. You could tell from the start that this was going to be an unfortunate, B-grade sequel to the enjoyable, well planned original.

Still, I thought I'd give it a go. I loved the first film and Christopher Lambert had returned to reprise his role, so I thought why not?

Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed. The script was very lame, with characters suddenly having the "convenient" skills to make an escape possible at just the right time. Not much planning went into set design. There were very little of the fancy, modern gadgets of the first movie, and you can tell they were cutting costs. Much of the film was computer generated to cover the missing pieces. As for the plot - it was far too unbelievable and, dare I say it, actually quite boring.

This time, the prison is in outer space (!), and instead of those little metal tracking devices used in the first Fortress, prisoners are given a "behaviour modifier" than is implanted in their brain. These ones definitely can't be removed.

It is a rehash of the first. Christopher makes some friends inside, and then they help him to escape. None of the characters other than Chris are very likeable, and I found myself not really caring if they survived or not. Chris seemed to just cruise through the film without much effort - what more could he do?

Christopher Lambert; the king of newer B-movies. The guy has been in every(I think) Highlander movie so far, despite the fact that only the first was particularly popular. He's done so many B-movies that one has to wonder if he is aware that the films are bad and doesn't care, or if he really doesn't realize their quality(or, rather, lack thereof). Here, he returns in a sequel to the fairly low-budget B-movie action-science fiction flick, Fortress. In the first one, the prison was huge, and underneath the ground. Here, it's... well, it's still huge, but this time, it's in outer space. I guess the writer thought, hey, the first time, it was underneath the ground... the only place that could be worse than that would be outer space. I hope he's right... I surely do, because if he is, maybe we won't see anymore half-cooked action-sci-fi flicks like this. Lambert portrays the exact same character, which I suppose is good, as he was a decent character in the first. A few somewhat big names also join the cast, most noticeably Pam Grier. The cast of characters from the first are pretty much remade(apart from Lambert himself), meaning that the new cast pretty much just fills the shoes of the characters from the first(anyone who knows how the first ended knows why). Unfortunately, that means that the film seems more like an overblown remake with the same guy portraying the lead, rather than a sequel. The hacker from the first(who was a neurotic, nervous guy, beautifully portrayed by great horror-talent, Jeffrey Combs) is replaced by an annoying black-guy stereotype. The female lead is replaced by a girl from the resistance(which Lambert's character is said to be a member of as well... odd... I don't remember that from the first... does that mean he joined the resistance after he got a kid? Who'd do that?), instead of his wife as it was in the first... apparently mainly because the scriptwriter couldn't find a good way to capture both Lambert and the wife-character, without capturing the kid. The Men-Tel prison commander(who was played by the cool bad-guy actor, Kurtwood Smith, from RoboCop fame) is now an annoying wimp with a ridiculous British accent that really gets on your nerves(as opposed to the cool Smith, who was a menacing and threatening presence). The plot is a rehash of the first. The pacing isn't particularly good. The very scenes in the movie seems to be(for the most part) remakes of the scenes of the original(talk about lack of originality...) and the action is mostly just rehashes of the first, just made a little less exciting(remember those way-cool machine guns with three barrels in the first? They're replaced with dull futuristic-looking stick-stun-guns). The special effects are decent at best. The script is a weak rehash of the first, with a few added sub-plots, none of which being particularly good... most of them are just there to keep the film going, or put it an action scene, in order to distract the audience from the poor writing. The dialog is pretty bad, with one or two exceptions. All in all, the film is just a tame rehash of everything the first was(which isn't even a lot). Somebody took the first film, said, "hey, this is popular... but it's not very good... how about if we try to do something of even lesser quality and see if people will like it?" Probably writer/producer/actor John Flock, who, going by the plot and the writing of this film, really is as dumb as he looks. I recommend this only to huge fans of the first Fortress, Lambert or B-movies. Everyone else; don't bother. There's a million better ways to spend 90 minutes, and there's at least as many reasons not to see this film. 5/10

I think this one just had a better look & feel to it. I liked the atmosphere more than the first. I also would maybe watch this one again but I don't know about the first. It was too depressing. This one was fun. This director did what we wanted & didn't kill off all of the main characters. If Dday didn't die on the first I would have liked it more. It had too much of a mad max look to it which is a look I don't like. It's like a futuristic look but yet it's still dull looking. The second was just more fun to me. I just hate when directors will kill off my favorite characters one by one making it more & more depressing. I also really liked the whole space idea because I'm thinking to myself "how... is he going to get out".