Fortress Movie Review

Fortress (1992)

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Written by: Troy Neighbors & Steven Feinberg (story), Troy Neighbors & Steven Feinberg & David Venable and Terry Curtis Fox (screenplay)
Directed by: Stuart Gordon
Starring: Christopher Lambert, Loryn Locklin, Kurtwood Smith, Clifton Collins Jr.
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
In the future the inmates in an underground prison called Fortress are computer controlled with CCTV, dream readers, and devices that can cause pain or death. John and his illegally pregnant wife are inside but want to escape before birth.

Verdict
This started with the promise of sci-fi and interesting ideas, but this is nothing more than a prison escape with nonsense imitating sci-fi. This does nothing with the potential. I could forgive the low budget style, but this could do so much more. Sci-fi explores ideas and futures, here it's used to cover the shallow plot.
Skip it.

Review
This wastes no time getting started. This is a dystopian future with the Brennicks, husband and wife (Christopher Lambert and Loryn Locklin), trying to escape across the border because she's pregnant. He gets thirty one years in an underground prison.

Clifton Collins Jr. and Christopher Lambert play Gomez and Brennick

The main plot is Brennick escaping from a near invincible computer controlled prison. Overpopulation, dystopia, and the underlying factors aren't revisited once we get to the prison. This isn't a good movie, but I was hoping the sci-fi might help derive some enjoyment from this. Unfortunately that's soon abandoned. Brennick is told escape is impossible, but he's resolute that he'll escape. Everything that happens within the prison is typical and lacking creativity, stuff we've seen before.

The aspect with the most potential are the faceless cyborgs that are deployed later in the movie. It turns out they used to be human. That should have been a bigger aspect to the story since additionally any unauthorized births are turned into cyborgs. This is a prison break movie with sci-fi as a dress up.

The one child per couple rule exists only as a catalyst to get us to the prison. This movie never once considers how overpopulation and cyborgs would alter the world. This is a disappointment and I wasn't expecting much. The opening gave me false hope.