Fortress 2: Re-entry (1999)

Tagline:

No Pardon. No Parole. No Escape.

Back of DVD:

Years ago, John Brennick did the impossible - he escaped from the maximum security prison known as The Fortress. But the Men-Tel Corporation have finally tracked down and re-captured their most wanted fugitive, and Brennick's fight for freedom is about to begin again - on a state-of-the-art prison orbiting 26,000 miles above the Earth.

Movie Review:

I actually owned this when it came out and as I didn't have much appreciation for bad sequels I sold it on. Ten years later I picked it up again at a closing down sale and gave it another chance. I am a massive fan of the first Fortress. To me it is the epitome of B-grade sci-fi action, with hilarious over-acting and plenty of cyborg-gore to boot. Plus Kurtwood Smith (Boddicker from Robocop) is brilliant as Prison Director Poe. And it also helps that it was filmed in Queensland.

Fortress 2 came out seven years later which follows well with the timeline, as the movie starts in the woods where Christopher Lambert and his (most likely) seven year old son are working and riding horses. They are called back to the cabin by his wife Karen (different actress to the first film) and meet with members of the resistance to Men-Tel (the corporation that own everything and built the first Fortress). Lambert doesn't want a bar of them and sends them packing, just in time for Men-Tel choppers to find him and his family. Soldiers blow open his door and chase him into an escape tunnel in the floor, shooting and getting shot at in the process. Lambert's wife and kids get separated and Lambert escapes in a jeep that has a handy RPG in the boot. He takes out the chopper but another comes quickly and blows his car up, netting him as he tries to escape, and knocking him unconscious with gas.

Lambert awakes in a steel chair being dictated rules to by the resident robotic glowing red light in the roof, a situation he knows all too well. The first thing I noticed is that for some reason Zed, the security system, has a South African accent this time. This sequel was filmed in Luxembourg so it's a little surprising. Instead of Intestinators, this time Lambert is outfitted with a new neural inhibitor, injected into his leg. I would have thought his head would have been more appropriate, but I'm no doctor, nor a security system with red eyeball.

It all goes on pretty much like the first movie, except this time women are allowed to mix with men. Lambert gets a bunk bed with a mix of people - a girl who was with the resistance but got arrested, an ex-Russian military man, another ex-resistance guy who had a botched implant and is now a dribbling fool, and the jive-talking everyone's-friend black sidekick Marcus Jackson. He dead-set nearly pulls out "This is whack!" at one point, but this is the 90's so I have come to expect it in movies of the time (see: Under Siege 2).

There is of course an altercation with a beefcake in the mess hall who is complaining about the pink and yellow slop he has to eat. Lambert tries to break up the fight to save them all the pain of the neural inhibitors. This is when we get to meet the administrator of Fortress 2 (Patrick Malahide hamming it up) as he demonstrates over the internal video network what happens if you disobey the rules - you get flushed into space. That's right, Fortress 2 is an orbiting prison platform over Earth. Bet you didn't see that coming, what with the subtitle "Re-entry". Lambert is still going to try to escape though.

Yuji Okumoto, who we have previously seen playing the bad guy in Hard Justice, plays the token prison guard Sato that enjoys beating people up too much. There are a couple of instances where he asks for the inhibitors to be disabled so that he can enjoy a fight with an inmate, and other times where he just sits back and watches beefcakes try to take on Lambert. One beefcake has a go with a overly large welding torch but gets beaten into submission and catches on fire. Sato sends Lambert and a few others outside the ship in suits to do some repairs and doesn't care that Zed is warning him of an incoming asteroid shower. Lambert makes it back in side but one random redshirt cops as asteroid to the brain. Sato laughs and says "I'd give that a nine out of ten". Ooh you cold, cold man.

Look, this isn't too bad. Certainly I don't know why I sold it the first time, I definitely appreciated it more on a second viewing. But it pales in comparison to the original. There is no over-the-top gore in Fortress 2 and no triple-barreled shotguns which is a real shame, as it was one of the main reasons the first worked so well, but there are a few fights and a minor shootout.

Lambert's sidekicks are also not as likeable this time round. The first movie had a good mix of friends for Lambert with prison-currency Nino Gomez, assistant to the Administrator Abraham, beefcake Stiggs and the awesome Jeffrey Combs as tech geek D-Day. The annoying sidekick Marcus Jackson is the tech geek guy this time; he fashions a TV remote out of bits and pieces and a video recorder that the gang use to loop shower footage over the security network to confuse the guards whilst making their escape.

And what the hell was the deal with Lambert being able to do a spacewalk with no suit and just hold his breath? If you've seen the excellent Sunshine you know you turn to ice after about a second in space unprotected. It's -270 degrees for god's sake.

Worth a watch if you were a fan of the first movie's story and not just its gore. And check out the second last screenshot at the bottom of the page. Yes, that is a metronome.

The Video:

This is the long deleted R4 edition, one of the early examples of DVD in Australia coming out in 2000. The 16:9 enhanced presentation is very good and the filmic quality and surround sound are perfectly fine, no issues to report. Runtime 89 minutes.

Sourced From:

A Video Ezy rental shop that was closing down for two bucks.

Trailer:

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Born to Raise Hell (2010)

Tagline:

A duty to protect. A hunt for vengeance.

Back of DVD:

A hardcore Interpol agent (Steven Seagal) is assigned to an Eastern European task force to target gun traffickers and drug barons that operate throughout the Balkans. While investigating a Russian gun dealer, his team is caught in a bloody street war between a Gypsy gang and the Russians, leaving one task force member dead. Fuelled with vengeance, he embarks on an deadly mission to settle the score with the ruthless criminals that took his friend's life.

Movie Review:

Man I love Steven Seagal. He is a constant source of entertaining DTV action movies. Sure some are way better than others (Urban Justice is far better than Attack Force) but the guy goes out there once, twice sometimes three times a year and makes 90 minutes of solid action for the punters. Most people left Seagal back when he had a ponytail during Under Siege, or at a stretch, Under Siege 2. I'm as much to blame as anyone for that, and to Mr. Seagal if you are reading - I am sorry for losing my faith. You did all the collaboration-with-rappers movies that were popular in the late 90's and I just tuned out. Then as far as I was aware you faded into obscurity.

But no, he was out there, keeping it real on VHS and DVD. He cut his hair and put on some weight, but that happens to the best of us. And besides he's been a cop for twenty years, all they eat are donuts and frown on long hair so is he really to blame? He did get gradually lazier with his martial arts on screen and even line delivery, employing some pretty average post-production dubbing and obvious stunt doubles, but his last few movies have been correcting that issue adequately. The man also knows his range and sticks by it, which I applaud. Whilst other action heroes like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Arnold Schwarzenegger have tried to mix it up a bit, Seagal has stayed true to his capabilities. This could say a lot about JCVD and Arnie as their ventures outside pure action have generally, in my opinion, been a success (Hmm, well Twins was fun but Jingle All the Way?), but it does say a lot about Seagal who knows what he can do and knows what his fans want. Though let's try and forget Against the Dark, shall we?

I could talk about Seagal for ages but Vern did it much better than I could in his excellent book Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal, which I urge everyone to read. This is Seagal's latest movie Born to Raise Hell. Another classy title that doesn't really fit the subject matter (Pistol Whipped, anyone?) but the movie generally ticks all the right boxes.

• Seagal is holding a pistol on the cover and looking determined.
• The movie was filmed in an Eastern European country, this time Romania.
• He is an Interpol agent.
• He is involved with a number of drug busts.
• He goes to a strip club. That's owned by a drug dealer.
• His partner gets killed. Twice.
• He avenges the dead partners by breaking the law.
• He has a wife half his age and we have to watch them have awkward sex.
• A grenade causes a fireball explosion that isn't CG.
• Girls with machine guns.

One of the boxes that shouldn't be ticked but is, is the dubbing and stunt double usage box. I personally didn't notice the dubbing but other reviewers have so I guess it's there. The stunt double is fairly obvious and out of the four main fights is in two of them. This means Born to Raise Hell is a step back from A Dangerous Man which I don't remember having much if any of either, but at least it is nowhere near as bad as Out for a Kill. Still, any dubbing is pretty inexcusable when he did both write and produce the movie. Surely he could have gotten it right during filming.

On with the movie itself. It starts in Bucharest, Romania and instantly it is obvious we will be treated to that familiar ADD style of editing. Lot's of pauses, flashes, intentionally skipped frames, typing sounds when text crawls onto the screen etc. See my review of The Contractor for another movie that suffers from this. Luckily though it does peter out a bit after the first act, though never entirely. Seagal works at a drug taskforce headquarters and according to the monologue his job has become harder since September 11, 2001 as terrorists attacks are funded by drug sales. His partner was killed six months earlier and he "will find who was responsible". He is being assigned a new partner today and they go on a drug bust.

They break into the suspects apartment and after ordering their weapons dropped ("Mother fucker I'm speaking English!") Seagal reprimands his new partner for not securing the scene. One guy tries to escape by driving his motorbike - which was inside the house - out the front window. Seagal kicks him down and the bike smashes out the window with no driver. Taking the suspect back to headquarters, Seagal learns of two lots of bad guys out there. One is a top level drug manufacturer, Dimitri, who uses gorgeous supermodels to smuggle his drugs through airports, and the other is a drug dealer, Costel, who favours violent home invasions to steal money to buy drugs from the other guy. The suspect cuts a deal to lead Seagal's team to Dimitri and send him in as bait. It goes a bit pear shaped and Seagal has to break a few noses and throw a guy through a park bench.

Seagal is pretty unfazed through the whole movie, though this does work to his advantage in delivering some dry humour. Seagal finally arrests Dimitri on little more than possession of a deadly weapon. Dimitri has played this game before and in an effort to prove police brutality to expedite a quick release, smashes his own head into the car window. Seagal says nothing more than "Damn. This arsehole will bleed on my seats." Champagne comedy, Steve!

The second act of the movie is actually focussed more on the brewing conflict between Dimitri's gang of mainly hot women with machine guns and Costel's gang of three-day-old growth slimeballs. I know who I'd root for and eventually it gets to boiling point after Costel kills Dimitri's wife. Seagal is absent for a lot of this, but thankfully does feature prominently in the third act.

It's not obvious that the new partner will die until one moment when he tells Seagal that his wife is pregnant. That's like showing photos of your kids, running up stairs in a horror movie or wearing a red shirt on Star Trek. The guy is as good as dead and soon gets gunned down by Costel's thugs. Now we have both Seagal and Dimitri out for blood, and in a gentlemanly agreement, they work together to take down Costel and his associates.

Although I did say that there was a stunt double in this, Seagal does still kick arse and take names, especially in the fights without the double (or less obvious use of the double). Plenty of patented Seagal Slap-fu in this movie, a few snapped arms and guys thrown into walls. He tries to go to dinner with his twenty-something year old wife and gets attacked. After beating everyone senseless he says to his wife "This is why I don't like to eat out." Brilliant! Then they have extremely awkward, sweaty sex in which Seagal doesn't even take his jacket off. Man I wish he would stop doing these scenes, but at least they are funny.

So this is a by-the-numbers Seagal DTV action flick. I was only mildly disappointed in that it wasn't as good as A Dangerous Man from 2009, or Driven to Kill aka Ruslan from 2009, but it was better than The Keeper... from 2009 (a busy year evidently for Steven). Go in to this with the standard Seagal DTV expectations and you'll have a good time.

On a related note, check out this pretty funny fake Seagal movie poster site. I really liked Under Siege X: "Casey Ryback was cryogenically frozen by the government to protect our future." Now THAT sounds like an awesome movie.

The Video:

Same as all his other recent ones. Filmed in digital HD and as clear as a whistle with a pounding soundtrack.

Sourced From:

Amazon.co.uk on pre-order for about six pounds.

Trailer:

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Phantom Soldiers (1987)

Movie Review:

I was browsing around blogs a few weeks ago and tripped over a new one (for me anyway), Jack J's fantastic site When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines. This guy watches and reviews nothing but vietnam war movies that were filmed in the Philippines, of which there are many. In one of his many posts he pointed readers to an eBay seller that was auctioning off some rare Japanese VHS tapes of some of his favourite movies. After reading all I could on Jack's blog I decided to take a punt and won the videos. I've always had a soft spot for VHS and had known for a while that Japan had some of the rarest movies released there and often released them in their original aspect ratio - a rare thing for the time. The first of the videos I got was this one, Phantom Soldiers. So, was it worth the effort?

In a word, yes. This movie was fantastic and simply makes me eager to see more like it. I don't think I've seen this many explosions in the one movie since... well, ever I think. It's quite insane! We start in "Vietnam" (obviously, the Philippines) where a team of solders in all black gear and black gas masks begin laying waste to a small village. Not content with machine-gunning the villagers, the soldiers blow up their homes - every last one of them - and then heard the survivors to the beach and gas them. Pretty full on!

Cut to the Mexican/Texas border where the movies' hero Daniel Custer (Max Thayer, star of B-classic such as Martial Law II, No Retreat No Surrender 2, Sworn to Justice) and his team of undercover law enforcers are about to infiltrate a Mexican drug-running operation and catch the leader Castro. Custer feigns injury to confuse the guards while his compadres sneak around the back, but they are spotted and a shootout takes place though is quickly put to rest when Custer's team take out most of the enemy with missile launchers. So many explosions. I'm in heaven.

American soldiers arrive on the scene in Vietnam to survey the damage caused by the phantoms and find a painted skull on a pike. The prop is so obviously made of plastic. The Captain is informed and smashes his fists on the table in annoyance. I've seen some bad acting and awful ADR in my time but this guy takes the cake. His portrayal is so downright hilarious I burst out in laughter whenever he's on the screen. The soldier shows the Captain the painted skull and the Captain simply says: "Ah. Just like The Phantom. Well, this is another for my collection" and puts the skull on a shelf behind his desk with five others! Bahaha!

More army guys arrive in Vietnam and search for those responsible for destroying the village. One soldier sees a masked man in the bushes and fires wildly at him, and in a scene lifted right out of Predator the rest of his platoon fire wildly as well. Following the trail they watch from a clearing as more phantom soldiers are slaughtering farmers, and although they've been strictly informed they are on reconnaissance only, the team leader - who I should mention at this point is Daniel Custer's brother, Michael - go in to assist. Chasing the phantom soldiers into another forest they run into a guy (in all black...) that says the phantoms are on a secret mission for the CIA. This of course is a lie and the American soldiers are trapped in gunfire with only three survivors (Michael being one of them).

So much violence and we haven't even made it to the main plot point yet. Daniel Custer, returned from his jaunt in Mexico, gets a visit from an army guy who tells him his brother is missing in action in Vietnam. Daniel, a former soldier himself, goes to see his old Captain for permission to go to Vietnam and find Michael. He gets denied but the very next scene he is wearing someone else's uniform and cowboy hat and stealing a plane ride to Vietnam. Arriving at the American base he is immediately, and randomly, thrown into the chaos of war as hundreds of Vietnamese attack. This is a superb piece of war action that does not let up; machine guns, mortars, missiles, you name it. I'm not sure if the attack was a response to the phantom soldiers attack on the village or just the war in general, it's not explained. America wins in the end and Custer interrogates a POW who tells him about the phantom soldiers.

This is such a great flick, perfect war action fodder and a definite repeat viewer. The acting is generally bad, though the star Max Thayer is pretty good (and a really nice guy too; check out this interview I found). There is a hilarious fat Russian chef later who you have to see to believe when he insists on death by firing squad for swearing. They even manage to get a titty bar with bar fight into the movie, and the final shootout is just awesome with Custer firing a missile launcher at close range at a guy who literally says "Eep!" before being gibbed.

If the other Philo' war movies I got are anything like Phantom Soldiers I will be extremely happy. The director, Teddy Page, has a solid B-movie biography with at least five movies starting with the word "Blood". Happily I also picked up another of his Philo' war movies on Japanese VHS, Blood Debts, so expect a review of that in the near future.

Make sure you check out Phantom Soldiers. Dig out the VCR and find yourself a tape. It's worth it.

The Video:

As I mentioned above, this is a Japanese VHS. It looks great and is in widescreen with mono English audio and burnt in Japanese subtitles (you forget they are there after a while). As far as I'm aware this is the best way to see this movie. I thought I could clean the video up a little so have spent some time encoding it and running it through some filters to correct the colour a little, fix the VHS chroma ghosting, stretch it out to 16:9 anamorphic widescreen and apply a light sharpen filter. Call it a hobby I guess. I'm pretty happy with the end result and the screenshots above are from my new DVD edition.

Sourced From:

eBay from a Japanese VHS collector.

Trailer:

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