a5c7b9f00b In 2017, John Henry Brennick and his wife Karen are captured at a US immigration point with an illegal baby during population control. The resulting prison experience is the subject of the movie. The prison is run by a private corporation bent on mind control. In a futuristic USA, it's forbidden to give birth to more than one child for each woman. As usual, you can escape to Mexico to avoid the authorities in USA, which is exactly what John and Karen Brennick were trying to do when Karen is pregnant with her second child (their first child was born dead). When they think they have made it they are discovered and put to prison (for 31 years), a modern prison called the "Fortress" where the prisoners are controlled by lasers, neutron-cannons, cameras, mind-scanners and electronic pain-causing devices in their stomachs. With those odds, John still plans to escape with his wife. As I child, my parents let me watch all sorts of violent movies and I really can't thank them enough for it. I will name a few that stayed in the memory to this day: Speed, Hard Boiled, Under Siege 1 and 2, Terminator 2, Highlander, Braveheart and this movie, Fortress. <br/><br/>Fortress stars Christopher Lambert in his best role (yes, even better than Highlander). In the future you can't have more than one child or something like that and he and his wife are sent to a new super prison where escape is impossible, or so it seems! <br/><br/>I have a problem with the tagline 'the only thing it couldn't hold was an innocent man'. Lambert is not innocent. His wife is pregnant again and no matter how stupid the law is, he broke it. So I suppose the only thing it can't hold is a group of guys who plot to escape using the explosive stomach bombs that are planted in them on arrival. Yes, you heard correctly, stomach bombs! If you go out side the perimeter…BOOM! <br/><br/>Kurtwood Smith makes a great turn as the Head of the Prison, and as the pawn of the complex computer system that runs THE FORTRESS! <br/><br/>I loved this movie as a kid, and I watched it recently. Guess what? I still love it. It's got character to make up for it's clichés and a whole bunch of originality to make up for Lambert's French-Canadian-Lambert accent. His acting is what I call Lambertesque. <br/><br/>The non stop action makes this movie a great watch for any 1) man 2) fan of 80s/90s action 3)Lambert fan 4)Anyone open minded<br/><br/>I highly recommend it. The year is 2017, and apparently due to overpopulation the United States has become a totalitarian country enforcing a China-style one child per couple law. John Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen (Loryn Locklin) are trying to flee the US for Mexico, as Karen has become pregnant again after losing their first child. They are caught, however, and imprisoned in the Fortress, a massive underground prison facility run by the evil Men-Tel Corporation. Brennick has to come up with a plan to escape the prison and save his wife, while contending with the evil Prison Director Poe (Kurtwood Smith) and his AI sidekick Zed-10 (voice of Carolyn Purdy-Gordon).<br/><br/>Fortress is a pretty silly film, but as with most things starring Christopher Lambert, enjoyably silly. The other actors are mostly wallpaper - Lambert's character is pretty much the focus of the film, and he rolls out an entertaining variant on the Connor McLoed character that made his career. He fights people, fires a gun at the strange mutant prison guards, and at some point you're expecting him to proclaim "There can be only one!".<br/><br/>Entertainment can also be found from the strange performance of Kurtwood Smith as Director Poe. He seems to be obsessed with the sexual dreams of the inmates, which he observes via the prison's built in mind probe, and has a tame, sexless relationship with Brennick's wife who he coerces into living in comfortable quarters with him, rather than the prison. His motives aren't really that convincing - he states he wants to know what love is, but also that he can't have sex, so you just wonder what's the point.<br/><br/>There's also a strange plot about cutting open pregnant women and turning their babies into mutants (of which Poe is one) that never seems to go anywhere. But the plot isn't really the point of the film. It's just a massively silly film that you can enjoy with your brain switched off, where you can laugh at the oddly toothless villains, and just enjoy the B-movieness of it all.<br/><br/>If you want a silly film to enjoy/laugh at on a Saturday night, you could do far worse than Fortress.
Tiblilastback Admin replied
295 weeks ago