Date Watched: 1/17/2013
Starring: Christopher Lambert & Pam Grier
Plot:
7 years after the original Fortress movie, Brennick and his family are still on the run from the Men-tel corporation. A group of rebels attempt to gain his support but he refuses, wanting to focus on his family. A raid follows and Brennick along with the rebels are captured and sent to a new, more sophisticated fortress prison in outer space. But Brennick’s not a man to give in easily, and with a 10 year old son waiting for him back on earth, he’s going to pack some serious assault on the evil corporation. (From IMDB)
Rules:
Stupid accents.
Saying or doing implantations.
Scanning bar codes.
Mannish woman acting like a man.
Say Fortress.
Say or show Men-tel.
Quotes:
“So, we killed anybody since I left?”
“Nobody likes a smart guy Brennick.” Response: “You must be very popular then.”
“Put him in the hole.”
“Those Russians will cut out your heart just to see the look on your face.”
“Girl, I could build a radio station out of a milk carton and two condom wrappers.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting a piece of that myself.”
Viewer Quotes:
“He almost shot his kid in the head with a shotgun.”
“Is this movie called Fortress 2 Colon Re-Entry?”
About a woman: “Who’s that dude.”
“Let’s drink for the mannish woman dying.”
“I hate his accent.”
“Where do they get puddles of water in space?”
“They’re tapping into a cockroaches nervous system?”
“They sure do take a lot of showers in space.”
“What are all of those cuts on his face, are there cats flying by him?”
What we learned:
It’s really easy to escape from a prison space station. You just need a giant empty crate that they happen to be loading and a stick of gum. You stick the gum on the crate (not sure why exactly), jump in, and voila, you escape!
If that plan backfires, you just need to find a cockroach, attach a video camera to his back, and tap into his nervous system. He’ll do the rest and navigate directly where you’d want him to go for your escape plan.
In space, people are very open to coed community showers as evidenced here and in Starship Troopers. I wonder at what point in the future this becomes a reality.
The way to win over Russian prisoners who originally wanted to kill you is to play chess with them. They use the chess pieces to exchange secret messages. Show them that you’re onto their code, and they will instantly become your allies.
Final Take:
This is a completely passable B movie. It requires no thinking and little engagement on your part. (Christopher Lambert must have been thinking the same thing as he was acting out his lines.) You will watch this movie and not remember a thing about it the next day, but know that you had a decent time watching it. I’m somewhat interested in watching the original Fortress since we watched the sequel, but I would make absolutely no attempt to actually seek it out. (For example, if I was reasonably intoxicated and unable to move and it came on TV, I wouldn’t intentionally make myself pass out to keep from watching it.)
On IMDB there is a quote from someone saying that they are a “massive Lambert fan”, and they were let down by the film. I’m guessing the average person will look at Lambert’s past body of work and a movie subtitled “Re-Entry” and not have quite the same expectations. For those looking for a crappy movie to share some drinks and some laughs over, this won’t let you down.
Bad Movie Thursday 
Christopher Lambert in space? Sign me up!
This one was alright. It really reaffirms why Christopher Lambert isn’t in more movies, though. I hate that accent. Is he the only person in the world with that accent? It sounds like nobody else I’ve ever heard. Probably from spending so much time in space.
A lot of those rules didn’t work out so well, though. The implantations and barcode scanning rules only came into play at the beginning. Apparently 2 days into the prison stint they get pretty relaxed about having people scanned. The mannish woman dies right away, otherwise that one could have been pretty funny. The rule that really ended up panning out was the one about saying or seeing Men-Tel. Happens all the time.
It was also funny how they tried to make it a huge reveal surprise that the prisoners were actually in space. Who signs up to watch this movie without knowing that?