Die Festung II: Die Rückkehr

Well, lets be honest here, the first Fortress movie was nothing too special even though it was directed by Stuart Gordon and featured some excellent cheese filled moments. You may think that the craptacular enjoyment provided by the first movie would translate over to the lower budgeted, even more b sequel.

Sadly I was totally wrong with this assumption.

Things just happen in this movie... There's really no effort by the script or director to give us any characterization. We're stuck with " Brennick is in prison, now he must bust out " as soon as the movie starts.

There's plot holes galore, stupid scenes, and some terrible special FX.

Lambert must have been really hungry for the fifty or so grand he was paid to do this train wreck.

I'm a fan of cheeseball, low budget films... But they have to at least be entertaining in some form or another to be enjoyable to me. There are a few moments like that found in this film, but unless you want to see how NOT to make a movie, don't bother with this one.

1 out of 5.

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.

I wouldn't say Fortress 2 was an utter disaster like many of you have pointed out.

I'm a big fan of the first Fortress movie, and recently while in my local Blockbuster store I spotted Fortress 2 sitting on the selves. So me being a massive Christopher Lambert & Fortress fan I jumped at the chance of renting it.

I don't like the idea of the new Fortress being located in space it doesn't work out right in the long run. Fortress 2 is pretty much the same. The intestinators from the first movie have been replaced by a sort of camera which is implanted into your brain there's the usual evil prison director controlling the Fortress and ZED the talking computer is back. Brennicks wife, Karen, is also back, but replaced with a different actor.

To cut a long story short. The Fortress has now been turned into a giant power station which is floating around in space and is owned by the Mentel co-oporation. Inmates are kept there to keep it in working order and to build new structures for the Fortress. John Brennick (Christopher Lambert) gets caught (again) and is thrown back into the Fortress. He then sets out struggling to find a way out.

Like most sequels Lambert has starred in. I feel that Fortress 2 was rushed, there's giant gaps in the movie which could of been filled in with maybe some clever dialogue or interesting scenes.

Overall, being a massive Lambert fan even I must agree that this movie is below average.

4/10

A sequel to cult director Stuart Gordan's fun and campy film from 1993. This time Brennick is once again caught by the super-evil Men-Tel corporation and locked in a facility orbiting the Earth. Naturally he soon begins planning an escape.

Aside from the opening action scene which is OK the film starts to sink pretty fast. Relying too much on computer effects that are really sub-par - the first film cleverly used set design more than computer effects - and then there are some glaring plot devices that pretty much overshadow parts of the plot that are enjoyable. Cheesy computer effects are forgivable and can easily be looked on as a new-age camp, but the silliness of the plot of is poor script writing and that is almost impossible to forgive. You need a tight script for a good movie. Period.

Also, if you thought the end to first film was cheesy then you'll like this film even less because the ending is even ridiculous by fairy tale standards. --- 4/10

Rated R: violence and profanity

So Patrick Malahide is Teller, the prison governor. Okay. However, Patrick Malahide was also Chisholm in Minder, and I don't think the filmmakers realised just how off-putting that would be - you keep expecting a spluttering Arfur Daley to be hustled into his office instead of a stony-faced Chris Lambert. Well, I did, anyway.

Of course, that wouldn't be too likely as this new Fortress is in orbit 26,000 miles above Earth, which, when it's suddenly revealed (to the horror of the oblivious prisoners/"labourers"), feels like it should have been a key twist that you couldn't possibly have seen coming... bit of a shame that it's given away in the tagline on the front of the video, then.

Anyway, yeah, what everyone else said: it's Fortress 1, only not as good. The sets and effects are basically fine, some of the set pieces are pretty tense (if ridiculously set up), but the flimsy script, non-existent pacing, absence of worthwhile new ideas and charisma-free supporting cast all seem to have come from a film with one tenth of the budget - Pam Grier excepted, though she may as well not be in it at all considering the total irrelevance of her character.

And does everyone really have to talk so quietly? I know they're in prison, but Mr. Lambert always whispers everything anyway - and here so does Patrick Malahide, so get ready for a lot of scowling and rewinding if you want to follow the few halfhearted shreds of plot on offer.

Oh yeah, and that very last scene is, basically, the worst thing ever. It's not even as if The Laugh can save it, as Chris has already put The Laugh to much better effect about twenty minutes earlier...

"YOU are going to pardon ME? Heh heh heh."

He hasn't lost it.