Fortress 2: Re-Entry (1999)

(IMDB)

Quote :

From Wikipedia: Fortress 2 takes place nearly a decade after the original film ended. John Brennick is still on the run, living in a secret network of cabins and underground passageways on what appears to be a huge, uninhabited nature preserve. After being arrested by Men-tel (although his wife and child escape), he is rocketed into space and trapped in an orbiting space-prison. Instead of being implanted with an "intestinator", as in the first film, space-prisoners are implanted with a device that allows administrators to "see through the eyes of the prisoners." This device also causes headaches of varying intensity when prisoners try to enter a "secure area." This constitutes the majority of security precautions in the prison.
The living quarters in space-prison are even more lax than in the first film, as all dormitories, showers, and free time are completely co-ed and almost totally unsupervised. Within a few days, Brennick and his friends have cracked the security measures and launch a revolt as Men-tel is on the verge of collapse from internal conflict back on Earth.

Sooo, watching this movie one things sprang to mind. But I’ll come to that in a minute.

First of, this movie kicks so much ass that even Asskicker Mckickarse would say dang that movie kicks ass! It’s cool, cold as ice and hart warming. And it has one of the most bullshit stories I’ve ever seen in a movie. Not only the story, but the entire movie is ridiculous beyond belief. And that’s precisely what makes this one a classic!
Seeing as it is Christopher Lambert who’s the Brennick again, you can imagine what I’m talking about.
Here’s a list of things that caught my attention.
1. Using explosives to open up a cabin door (mind you, it’s a wooden door). I think this is done to show that they’d use a special kind of future packing to place the explosive on the door, to show that this story takes place in the future. And not in the least because the helicopters that have come to take our hero away are cheap 80’s “look we got this from an A-Team set garbage sale” type helicopters.
2. The mixed showering. Hot dang! (Liz May Brice shows her boobs several times.)
3. The pseudo sexual morning gymnastics. (see 2)
4. The stereotype black guy. (always a treat to see them)
5. Our hero survives a trip in space without protective clothing. (ok, in all fairness, he closes the top button of his overall.)
6. The tearjurking ending.
7. The sudden lighting storm at the beginning when Lambert is getting bad news.
8. Elena Rivera (Liz May Brice) naked in the shower. I’d drag my penis through a mile of broken glass just to smell her fart.
9. Shit, it’s Christopher Lambert!

Needless to say, these are all in favor of the movie.

To be honest, there are quite a few flaws in this movie. Like the fact that nothing of the first movie survived. Men-Tel has decided to leave their mutant workforce behind, along with their high powered ultra weapons. Instead it just looks like, well, normal people like you and me (well, maybe not you and me, but you get the idea) wielding 20th century assault weapons.
Men-Tel’s only leverage in the world of the future, as depicted in Fortress 2, is a power station in orbit. If this was my soul possession, I’d take good care of it, let it be handled by professionals. One of the first things Brennick, accompanied by 3 others, gets to do when he’s on labor duty is replacing solar panels. But that’s just nitpicking.
One of the most remarkable differences between Fortress and Fortress 2 is that in 10 years technology has seemed to have moved backwards. Zed, the Men-Tel computer makes a reappearance, but Zed is much less competent and more low-key this time. Furthermore, Zed's roving camera eye that so terrorized the prisoners in the original has been replaced by fixed, rotating thingies that seem much less effective. Men-Tel has also apparently gotten out of the cyborg game, and the whole plotline from the original about the corporation trying to create "enhanced" humans is gone. Frankly, there is nothing in Fortress 2 as technologically advanced as the robotic truck from the end of Fortress. Men-Tel seems to have gone a little to seed, maybe as a result of the costs of fighting off Brennick and his merry band of outlaws. Indeed, the whole subplot about a competition within the Men-Tel Corporation for influence is pretty low rent. Apparently, the warden, Peter Teller (Patrick Malahide) and Susan Teller (an under-utilized Pam Grier) are fighting for control of the corporation. The warden plans to turn the power-station into an orbital gun platform, or some such, while Pam wants to force him out, or something. They might be siblings or half-siblings or maybe she's his step-mom. I must have dozed off when/if their relationship was explained.
The story feels like it just skips whole sections of the original story board, with no need to explain why, or what happened.
At one point Brennick is placed in “the hole”. Basically a bubble on the outside of the space ship, in which he suffers intolerable heat when it’s facing the sun (and radiation), and unimaginable cold when it’s not. A dramatic and painful punishment. It’s just that the place doesn’t look like it was intended to be a place to punish the expendable labor force, with all the buttons, leavers and wiring.
Brennick was apprehended in Canada. This is all fine and dandy, would it not be for the fact that his son and wife can’t be captured because of the politics of launching cross-border incursions into Canada.
One of brennick’s crew head-butts a TV, and they find a frequency modulator. Subsequently they make a remote, a VCR and a transmitter. Bennick’s crew make a bunch of tapes of themselves showering to broadcast to the guards while they work on their own escape plans. The filmmakers apparently hoped that viewer would be similarly distracted by boob and butt shots and not notice the inherent technical implausibility of all this. Still, I’m not one to complain
There is also a plotline about Brennick running afoul of a prison bully. Said bully ultimately attacks Brennick wielding a functional flamethrower (!), but surprisingly chooses to try to club Brennick with the nozzle rather than frying him. It is an odd, incoherent scene that may have been conceived as tongue-in-cheek somehow but that just comes off as inept instead.
But the thing that striked me the most, what really made me think that the producers didn’t really think this one through, is this: There are approximately 120 prisoners on board. A few die (let’s say 5), a few “escape” (let’s say 12). This leaves 103 inmates. Brennick escapes with 4 others. This leaves 99 still remaining. He blew up 99 people to escape, that’s not counting crew!

In all fairness, I couldn’t care less about these points (except the last one). Fortress 2 is a great movie, despite (maybe even because) the many flaws it contains. Sure, it pales in comparison to Fortress 1, but seeing it as a separate movie, it’s really enjoyable.

7/10