FORTRESS (1992)
a review by Evan Landon
Remember when you could put Christopher Lambert in any wacky movie with a non-sensical plot and it automatically turns into a moderate success? What a great time to be alive. If you weren't there for the VHS era, you truly did miss out, in my humble opinion. Some people disagree with me and they are just WRONG! I have somewhere around 1,300 VHS tapes and that is not because it is a better format; it just holds so much nostalgia for me and a whole slew of others that it just drips with Euphoria, from the grainy picture to the hum of the machine heads inside.
Somewhere, in that hot mess bulky mediums, lies this cherished 1992 sci-fi action gem that caught major speed after a decent stint in the theaters through it's very same VHS release. Director Stuart Gordon (of Re-Animator and From Beyond acclaim) was tapped to helm the project after Miramax and Dimension Films had secured the rights to it, who hired actor Jeffrey Combs in a large supporting role continuing their list of myriad collaborations together. Kurtwood Smith turns in another solid performance as the half-human cyborg, Prison Director Poe, serving as the film's menacing, twisted antagonist who wants Brennick's pregnant wife for himself.
Certainly, science fiction films such as these work on a very basic premise, yet somehow falter in their execution for a multitude of reasons. In this instance, the plot goes something like this: in the dystopian year of 2017, the United States has outlawed having more than one child to avoid overpopulation. With the existence of such laws, the underground prisons ran by the artificial intelligence computers of major corporations are so overcrowded that the prisoners themselves are forced to dig further into the Earth to make room for the massive influx of criminals. After his wife is pregnant with their second child (their firstborn dying during child birth), ex-army officer John Henry Brennick (Lambert) and she are caught at the border of the Canadian Soviet Socialist Republic and sentenced to life in prison. With the help his motley crew of cellmates, Brennick must fight his way back to wife and escape the eponymous fortress to freedom.
What is fantastic is that story does not fall into this often occurring trope, as the story has enough twists and turns with the adequate amount of character development to keep the audience interested through it's ninety-one minute run time. After his work on Star Wars, Robocop, and Altered States, the late Robert Blalack does a fantastic job given the restraints of their budget to edge out special effects that still hold up over thirty years later. Seriously, the practical effects in this movie hold up better than some of the mess we get stuck with today; the computer generated effects leave a lot to be desired, however.
The film was absolutely not a critical darling, as most movies in this genre seem to always get stuck with, but it did make $48 million worldwide against a $15 million budget prompting Tri-Star Pictures to greenlight a franchise-killing sequel that did nothing near the success of the original. Since garnering an ever growing cult fanbase, most of the initial distaste for this movie has died down. If you enjoy a science fiction action adventure (with subtle hints of body horror from a director who is very well versed in the genre), you could do a hell of a lot worse than this cult classic.
3.5 Out Of 5