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Fortress 2: Re-entry
USA/Luxembourg 1999
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
US, the near future. Following his escape from a prison run by the Men-Tel corporation, John Brennick has been hiding out with his wife Karen and son Danny. Given away by renegade Nestor, Danny is captured by Men-Tel operatives and imprisoned in a space station. There, all prisoners are implanted with a device which causes them pain if they attempt to escape. Along with fellow inmates, including Rivera, Marcus and Max, Brennick works on various projects for prison govenor Teller. While keeping in contact with his Men-Tel superior Susan Mendenall, Teller is secretly using prison labour to turn the station into a power plant and build a weapons system.
Brennick is discovered attempting to escape. Teller sentences Brennick to solitary confinement. On release, Brennick realises that implants tap into prisoners' optic nerves and allow the guards to monitor their every move. Marcus hacks into the guards' surveillance system and is able to distract them with playback footage of prisoners in the shower. Learning that a group of Russian inmates plan to escape on a shuttle due to arrive the next day, Brennick wins a place on board by agreeing to shut down the central computer system. Brennick manages this but the Russians leave without him; Teller has Brennick ejected into space, but Brennick surives, re-entering the station via an airlock. As the station suffers a power overload, Rivera, Marcus and Mendell - who arrived on the incoming shuttle - board a supply ship. Brennick kills Teller and joins them onboard. Back on Earth, he's reunited with Karen and Danny.
Review
Stuart Gordon's 1992 futuristic prison movie Fortress, shot in Australia, was set in a vast underground complex. This sequel raises the stakes by locating its escape-proof facility - in which dissident John Brennick is imprisoned - in low Earth orbit. The original was silly melodrama spiced up with Gordon's penchant for gruesome gags. This follow-up, whose natural home would seem to be video rental stores rather than local multiplexes, lacks Gordon's wit and grit, though director Geoff Murphy, whose science-fiction achievements include the excellent The Quiet Earth, makes it a decent enough ride.
The fights and tough talk are all straight out of stock and a lot of plot threads are dropped. (We are told, for instance, that the space tug won't survive another re-entry, but that's exactly what it does to provide a happy ending.) The film tries to distract us from its basic shoddiness by throwing in a great many disparate elements, including a heroic cockroach, a monitor system whereby the guards can look through each of the prisoners' eyes, a temperamental computer which frustrates the evil governor, a botched Russian Mafia escape attempt, dangerous work details outside on the solar panels, in-fighting among the corporate masters of humanity, a threat to Brennick's wife and son back on Earth and sci-fi variants on such prison movie favourites as a spell in "the hole" (a pod exposed to the glare of the sun) and the ally who turns out to be a traitor.
Brennick, played by Christopher Lambert, is the stolid central figure, thrown into a multi-racial, co-educational prison population. Everyone else is conceived in similarly clichéd terms, with Patrick Malahide, joining the run of British actors serving as low-rent master villains, as a prissy governor whose career was stalled by the events of the last film. Most of the supporting cast are average in roles that barely have the depth of the computer-game refugees Lambert mixed with in the film Mortal Kombat, though Willie Garson (after appearances on NYPD Blue and The X Files) is carving out a minor reputation for playing snivelling weasels with a sentimental streak. Here, he's a corporate turncoat whose mind-control plug - implanted into all new prisoners - goes awry, making him immune to the prison's pain-infliction system, while also leaving him a wandering idiot.
Considerably less well-used is Pam Grier, who has followed her star turn in Jackie Brown by being tossed back into a series of forgettable roles, here as the company queen who is neither evil nor decent enough to be of much interest and whose lascivious activities don't even get subplot status.
Credits
- Director
- Geoff Murphy
- Producer
- John Flock
- Screenplay
- John Flock
- Peter Doyle
- Story
- Steven Feinberg
- Troy Neighbors
- Based on characters created by
- Steven Feinberg
- Troy Neighbors
- Director of Photography
- Hiro Narita
- Editor
- James R. Symons
- Production Designer
- Rod Stratfold
- Music
- Christopher Franke
- ©Gower Productions, Inc
- Production Companies
- Gower Productions presents a John Flock production in association with
- The Carousel Picture Company
- Executive Producers
- Romain Schroeder
- Tom Reeve
- Co-producer
- Craig Berenson
- Production Co-ordinator
- Rozenn Le Pape
- Production Manager
- Luxembourg:
- Jean-Claude Schlim
- Unit/Facilities Manager
- Luxembourg:
- Laurent Dumas
- Studio Manager
- Paul de Bourcy
- Location Manager
- Pascal Charlier
- Post-production Supervisor
- Jack Santry
- 2nd Unit Director
- Luxembourg:
- Tom Reeve
- Assistant Directors
- J. Tom Archuleta
- Luxembourg:
- Ralph Eisenmann
- Béatrice Pettovich
- Sophie Treacher
- Script Supervisor
- Sheila McNaught
- Casting
- Karen Rea
- Sue Jones
- Luxembourg Manager:
- Carrie O'Brien
- Camera Operators
- Alessandro Bolognesi
- 2nd Camera:
- Roger Simonsz
- Helimount Operator
- Jan Vervaecke
- Visual Effects Production/ Supervision
- No Prisoners 3DFX, LLC
- Rendering Services
- Illuvatar, LLC
- Wire Removal/Digital Effects
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Special Effects
- Supervisor:
- Harry Wiessenhaan
- Co-ordinator:
- Edward Wiessenhaan
- Senior Technician:
- Robert Wiessenhaan
- Technicians:
- Patrick Rappard
- Roland Godijin
- Rogier Trouw
- Don Power
- William Karrasch
- Supervising Modelmakers
- Terry Whitehouse
- Nicholas Goodson
- Props/Model Makers
- Carl Wilson
- Christopher Hobbs
- Colin Childs
- Additional Computer Graphics
- CLT-UFA
- Art Directors
- Simon Bowles
- Nigel Evans
- Set Decorator
- Claire Grainger
- Concept Illustrators
- Richard Dolan
- James Cornish
- Conceptual Artist/ Draftsperson
- Keith Slote
- Storyboard Artist
- Tomislav Findrik
- Costume Designer
- Cynthia Dumont
- Costume Supervisor
- Uli Simon
- Wardrobe Mistress
- Renata Rotrubova
- Make-up/Hair
- Supervisor:
- David Myers
- Supervisor, Additional:
- Lesley Lamont-Fisher
- Artists:
- Didier La Vergne
- Artist, Additional:
- Cathy Folmer
- Hairstylist
- Vivian Nowack
- Main/End Titles
- Title House
- Opticals/Optical Animation
- Title House
- Optical Line-up Supervisor
- Jose Avitia
- Music Performed by
- The Berlin Symphonic Film Orchestra
- Conductor
- Alan Wagner
- Music Recordist/Producer
- Edgar Rothermich
- Sound Recording
- Maurice Hillier
- Digital Mixing Stage Recordist
- Mark Kaim
- Re-recording Mixers
- André Perreault
- Stanley Kastner
- Derek Marcil
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Garrard Whatley
- Supervising Dialogue Editor
- Albert Edmund Lord III
- Sound Effects
- David Lewis Yewdall
- ADR Engineer
- Joss Sanglier
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jesse Negron
- Jeff Laity
- Recordist:
- Merrill Whatley
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Rick Wiessenhaan
- Horse Wrangler
- Willy Loedts
- Cockroach Wranglers
- Pascal Jacqmin
- Manu Janssen
- Helicopter Co-ordinator
- Thierry Soumagne
- Helicopter Pilots
- Eddy LaCroix
- Walter Vlerick
- Cast
- Christopher Lambert
- John Brennick
- Patrick Malahide
- Peter Teller
- Liz May Brice
- Elena Rivera
- Anthony C. Hall
- Marcus Jackson
- Willie Garson
- Stanley Nussbaum
- Yuji Okumoto
- Sato
- Fredric Lane
- Gordon
- Nick Brimble
- Max Polk
- Beth Toussaint
- Karen Brennick
- David Roberson
- Nestor Tubman
- Aidan Rea
- Danny Brennick
- Pam Grier
- Susan Mendenall
- Paul de Bourcy
- Eagle Two
- Bruce McEwen
- mercenary leader
- Stephen Shivers
- mercenary
- Marius Speller
- Eagle One
- Mereta Mita
- ZED
- Thea Slikboer
- Sally Ho
- Carl Chase
- Wells
- Jody Scott
- Doctor Nora
- Willem de Beukelaer
- MacDam
- John Sharian
- Hickey
- Valérie Schiel
- water tug co-pilot
- Robert Hall
- Kearns
- Arnita Swanson
- Combs
- John Flock
- Bozinsky
- Patrick Hastert
- Andropov
- Peter Riemens
- Kerensky
- Radica Jovicic
- Davis
- Julian Vincent
- Sponsel
- Barbara Sarafian
- Hart
- Anthony O'Connell
- Bishop
- Gaëtan Wenders
- Eric
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 8,329 feet
- 92 minutes 33 seconds
- Dolby Digital
- Colour by
- DeLuxe