After a screening of Re Animator, Arnold Scharzenegger was eager to work with the director of Re Animator, Stuart Gordon and was originally supposed to play the lead in this. Fortress was going to be a big movie with a budget around 70 million, but once Arnold dropped out of the project and Christopher Lambert was cast the budget dropped to around 15 million. Still Fortress made a lot of money at the box office and is an action packed low budget sci fi prison movie that would be best described as a lower budgeted cross between Escape Plan and Total Recall. Christopher Lambert did a good enough job as the lead, but the best performance comes from Kurtwood Smith, best known for Robocop and 3rd Rock From The Sun as prison warden. Horror icons Tom Toyles and Jeffrey Combs appear as well as Vernon Wells(best known as Bennett from Commando). The film overall comes across dated, but is still decent entertainment and good for the genre with a lot of action.
Review of Fortress
