FORTRESS
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1993 James Berardinelli
Rating (Linear 0 to 10): 4.4
Date Released: 9/3/93 Running Length: 1:36 Rated: R (Violence, gore, nudity, sex, language)
Starring: Christopher Lambert, Loryn Locklin, Kurtwood Smith, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez Director: Stuart Gordan Producers: John Davis and John Flock Screenplay: Steve Feinberg, Troy Neighbors, and Terry Curtis Fox Released by Dimension Films (a division of Miramax)
It's the year 2018 and the population explosion in the United States is out of control. The government has instituted laws that prohibit a woman from having more than one baby, but when the only son of John Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen (Loryn Locklin) dies as an infant, the couple tries for another child--and gets caught. Both of them are sent to the most feared prison in the country: The Fortress, a maximum security establishment from which escape is impossible. To ensure prisoner cooperativeness, each new entry is fitted with a globe in the intestines that, upon disobedience, can cause either pain or death, depending on the nature of the infraction. The Fortress is not a nice place, and its director (Kurtwood Smith) is an emotionless servant of machines.
Every time a movie about the near future presents such a bleak picture of life on Earth, I always hope for a reasonable explanation about how things got so bad. Personally, I don't think that's too much to ask. However, for the most part, the film makers don't agree (apologies to pictures such as the TERMINATOR series), since they could care less about such details. They have a specific situation that needs to be set up to tell their story; everything else is irrelevant. FORTRESS falls right into that category. We can make a few guesses based on clues presented in the film, but even the best picture will be incomplete.
The pattern of this film is unusual. Most movies, no matter how good or bad, have peaks and valleys during the course of their running time. FORTRESS, on the other hand, while starting at a pretty high level, manages a consistent downward trend throughout. It's somewhat out-of-the-ordinary to be able to say that a movie gets uniformly worse with every passing scene. It's only the strength of the beginning that keeps this film from collapsing into the nether regions inhabited by such nightmares as SPLIT SECOND, another science fiction gorefest that takes place in a dreary near-future Earth.
The early minutes of FORTRESS are brimming with promise. Scenes bristle with the potential of interesting characters, strong interaction, and intelligent plot twists. Alas, little or nothing comes of most of these instances; they become a method of cruel teasing, tantalizing the viewer with what might have been. The film degenerates from intriguing to routine to dumb, all in the space of ninety minutes. By the end, it's all formula. The action has become commonplace and the characters flat.
The cast does a reasonable job. Christopher Lambert is probably a better actor than the role deserves, and he occasionally manages to make Jack Brennick believable. Similar praise goes to Loryn Locklin, an attractive blonde who infuses her character with strength of mind and heart. Lincoln Kilpatrick does as much as he can with a secondary part, creating one of the few minor characters that the audiences comes to care about.
Ultimately, FORTRESS is nonsense, even if the slick futuristic setting tries to put a new spin on the tried and true chase sequences. Once the slant of the script changes from exploring the internal mechanisms of the Fortress to following Brennick's escape plans, the movie is sunk. It's also at this point that significant plot implausibilities start cropping up.
One thing FORTRESS has going for is an impressive visual style--at least for those who can stand a lot of gore. There are exploding stomachs, dismembered bodies, and a great deal of blood--all done quite graphically, for the most part (would you expect anything different from the director of RE-ANIMATOR?). The set design is excellent, and the action scenes are well-paced, if lacking in legitimate surprises.
FORTRESS isn't terrible science fiction, but it's far from the top. Hampered by a storyline that never reverses a downward trend, the movie is unable to get on course. Instead of entering the rarefied atmosphere inhabited by such films as ALIENS and the original TERMINATOR, it falls in line with the likes of FREEJACK and ALIEN 3. Not the best company to be in, but it could be worse. Watch SPLIT SECOND and you'll understand how bad things can get in this genre. After that experience, FORTRESS will look like high art.
- James Berardinelli (blake7@cc.bellcore.com)
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