Shawn Francis gives us the low-down on Echo Bridge's Blu-Ray release of Stuart Gordon's frankly kick ass sci-fi prison actioner Fortress, starring the Highlander himself, Christopher Lambert, I actually dig this flick and it's one I shall be adding to the blu-ray collection, check out Shawn's review after the jump..
Written By Shawn Francis
Fortress
seems to be set in a future where humans are at that point where they
are overpopulating the one child. It
doesn’t matter if that child died and another comes unexpectedly
along. One child only. Have another and you get sentenced to decades
in a maximum-security prison. And not just any
maximum-security prison, this is the future and prisons in the future
are, well, futuristic, but, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Before
John Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and wife, Karen (Loryn Locklin)
end up in this futuristic fortress, they try like hell to make it to
the border where they can get free of whatever country they’re
living in that opposes their accidental breeding. Wearing a flack
jacket that’s supposed to mask the detection of any fetus, John and
Karen actually succeed in making it past the check station and the
guards, but forget one of their bags. This forgetfulness is what gets
them screwed, when the guard comes to deliver it to them, he spots
the flack jacket sticking out of her collar.
They fight like
hell, kicking the shit out of armed guards and making a mad dash
across the bridge. Karen seemingly makes it, but John is caught and
sentenced to 31 years in Men-Tel’s (corporation) state of the art,
underground fortress out in the middle of some god forsaken desert.
To
make matters worse Robocop’s psycho villain, Clarence
Boddicker, runs it. Not really, Kurtword Smith who played Boddicker
is now playing a sadistic, yet, naïve, “augmented human” named,
Poe, who relies on the prison’s artificial intelligence Zed-10 to
“nourish” him. He’s never left the prison and knows nothing of
the outside world, but seems very interested in monitoring the sexual
dreams of the inmates through one of the surveillance cameras that
keeps tabs on all the prisoners.
To
maker matters worse for Brennick, each prisoner is forcibly implanted
with an “intestinator.” A small computer device that sits
inactive in their guts, until they break the rules, then with one
command, the intestinators create a shit load of pain. If they refuse
to comply or proceed beyond a certain marked area, the intestinator
will introduce their guts to the light of day in the goriest possible
way.
Brennick
gets some marginal good luck, though, when it comes to whom his
cellmates are. Two of them anyway, for they’re actors, Jeffrey
Combs (playing D-Day) and Tom Towles (playing Stiggs). Maybe, not so
lucky when it comes to Towles. Stiggs starts of being an A number one
troublemaker, but relaxes a bit once his seven foot tall pal, Abraham
(Lincoln Kilpatrick) gets blown to pieces after a confrontation with
Brennick, which, I have to say, he completely instigated, so, he
deserved to be blown all over the place by the high powered weapons
Poe moved into play to make the fight more interesting.
Once
he discovers Karen was indeed captured and imprisoned, he makes it
his life’s work to get his ass, and his wife’s ass, and not to
mention his unborn baby’s ass, to freedom. But we all know that
kind of freedom comes with a high cost and his cellmates tell him
they’re all right with that. Better to die trying that not trying
at all.
The
eventual prison break ensues, inmates/guards/biomechanical clones are
intestinated, blown to bits with futuristic weaponry, burned to a
crisp by flame throwers and run over by a driverless truck all in the
name of sheer, mindless, and kick ass entertainment instigated by
director, Stuart Gordon.
What
more could you ask for?
Seriously,
what more?
Arnold
Schwarzenegger was going to play the John Brennick role, but when he
decided not to then budget went down and Stuart got Christopher
Lambert. Sure Arnold may have been his usual cool, ass kicking self,
but I’m also a Lambert fan, ever since Highlander (1986),
and I think he does an equally kick ass job as the hero.
I
remember seeing the trailer on TV back when it was coming out, but I
have no memory of when I caught it on cable. I have always loved this
movie and find Echo Bridge’s 1080p, 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer to
be just fine for me. Frankly, I’m just happy to finally have it
widescreen and anamorphic. And I didn’t have any complaints with
the DTS-HD MA Stereo either.
Unfortunately,
there are no extras, not even a trailer, but you do get a main menu
with a scene selection.
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