Fortress 2 (film)

''Fortress 2: Re-Entry'' is a 2000 science fiction action film directed by Geoff Murphy. It is the sequel to 1992's ''Fortress''. In the film, the principal actor Christopher Lambert reprises his role as John Henry Brennick, still on the run from the MenTel Corporation. Lambert was the only original actor to reprise his role; Loryn Locklin, who played Karen B. Brennick from the first film, did not return for the sequel and she was played by Beth Toussaint.

Plot

Ten years after the events of the first film, John Brennick is somewhere in North America, still on the run from Men-Tel and living in the rural mountains. His son Danny tells him to come home immediately. When they arrive, there are three people waiting for them. They ask John to help them destroy Men-Tel's new power station, saying that the company is on the verge of collapse and "without their power, they have no power". John refuses, wanting to protect his family, so the trio leave on a boat. As John waves goodbye, two Men-Tel helicopters appear and John scrambles his family's escape plan. He sends Danny and Karen through an underground passage, while he leads the soldiers on a wild goose chase. The battle ends with one helicopter destroyed and Brennick's Jeep overturned.

John is then knocked out and captured. He wakes up in a room with a disembodied voice telling him that he is in prison again and has been sentenced to death. He has been implanted with a behavior modification device which causes headaches of various intensity when prisoners enter prohibited areas. He also finds one of the men who visited him, a former Men-Tel vice president, who is now brain-damaged because of an improperly planted device. Another of John's visitors, a former soldier, is also in the jail and friends with one of the guards.

Brennick starts making enemies almost immediately. A video of Director Teller "welcomes" the new prisoners. He shows them a female prisoner receiving her death sentence, being blown out into space through an airlock. The video then shows the prisoners that their new prison is actually a space station orbiting the Earth which is used to generate power via a solar array.

Brennick tries to escape in a water-delivery shuttle but is caught and sent to "The Hole" - an exposed area of the ship where John is bombarded with solar radiation while the station faces the sun and extreme cold when its orbit takes it behind the Earth. When Men-Tel's president arrives he tries to kill John by jettisoning him without a spacesuit. John manages to hold his breath and propel himself towards another airlock and back into the prison. Due to the sudden decompression, the computerized warden, Zed, begins to malfunction and cannot perform its duties. John uses a prison gun to destroy the computer and Teller is subsequently electrocuted. John and all his friends board the Shuttle and head back to Earth, where John reunites with his family.

Cast

* Christopher Lambert as John H. Brennick
* Beth Toussaint as Karen B. Brennick, John's wife
* Liz May Brice as Elena Rivera
* Aidan Ostrogovich as Danny Brennick
* Willie Garson as Stanley Nussbaum
* Patrick Malahide as Prison Director Peter Teller
* Yuji Okumoto as Sato
* Pam Grier as Susan Mendenhall

Production

Prior to the film's release, it was reported Village Roadshow Pictures and Davis Entertainment had hired Troy Neighbors and Steven Feinberg to write a treatment for ''Fortress 2'' with Christopher Lambert slated to return and production to commence in early 1994. However, due to negative critical reception, a sequel to ''Fortress'' did not immediately move forward. Worldwide distribution rights, excluding Australia and New Zealand, were initially acquired by 20th Century Fox at the 1995 American Film Market. However in March 1998, after languishing in development hell, Columbia TriStar boarded the project as co-producers and acquired distribution rights following Fox bowing out of the project.

Release

The film was released direct-to-video in the United States on April 25, 2000 by Columbia TriStar.

Reception

Critical response

Almar Haflidason of the BBC said: " t'sa film that sorely lacks energy ndvarious moments of action are ruined by poor camera angles and clumsy editing, utwhile it may lack the grand set of ''Fortress'', it does boast some reasonable CGI effects and is slightly more entertaining in a cheap kind of way". Kim Newman of the British Film Institute's ''Sight & Sound'' said the film "lacks 'Fortress'' director Stuart Gordon's">Stuart_Gordon.html" ;"title="'Fortress'' director Stuart Gordon">'Fortress'' director Stuart Gordon'swit and grit, though director Geoff Murphy makes it a decent enough ride".

Nathan Shumate of Cold Fusion Video Reviews said the film is "at best, a pale imitation of the original ''Fortress''. [...] On its own, it's a passable movie, with an adequate budget both for sets and CGI space effects. Too bad it had to be a sequel to a superior movie, instead of something wholly its own". The Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy Film Review said: "The action scenes are run of the mill ndthe special effects are okay and the show at least mounts to a passable action climax as the space station explodes, utthe scripters have not endeavoured to approach this film in any more intelligent a way than they did the original".Fortress 2 review
, The Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy Film Review, September 5, 2008

See also

* List of films featuring space stations

Notes

References

External links

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{{Geoff Murphy

2000 films
2000 science fiction action films
2000s prison films
Space adventure films
English-language science fiction action films
English-language Luxembourgian films
Luxembourgian independent films
TriStar Pictures films
Direct-to-video sequel films
Films shot in Luxembourg
Films directed by Geoff Murphy
Films scored by Christopher Franke
2000s English-language films
English-language crime films