The moment my girlfriend and I finished watching this film, we said together, almost in unison "Not as good as the first one"..
The first Fortress film was original.. The whole movie centered around Chris Lambert's character trying his best to escape from the prison complex. Added to that was the twist of his wife and unborn child becoming a conquest for the main villain to master. In the first film, the other characters were interesting, each with his own personality and reason to be on Chris Lambert's "Team".
In contrast, Fortress 2 seems to plod along. The character seems to muck around within the prison for a long while before we see any movement towards escape. When he finally does escape (and if you consider knowing that he DOES escape is a spoiler, then you are naive, since it is obvious that the end product of the movie will be the character escaping) it all seems so easy and not really that difficult to do at all (unlike the first film, where a lot of movie time was spent planning the escape). He pulls of amazing computer-related feats as well as succeeding in kicking as many butts as possible, all within about 20 minutes.
The other characters in this film are kind of cardboard and one-dimensional. You never get to know the support characters in the film the way you did in the first one and therefore you don't really care whether they live or die. At one point in the film, a character removes his face mask and Chris Lambert's character recognises him. However, both my girlfriend and I were not quite so quick, and spend about 5 minutes trying to work out who the character was and why Chris Lambert's character felt so betrayed by him. This definetly demonstrates that the characters are not very memorable. I am not sure whether this is due to the fact that Chris Lambert wanted a bigger role in this film or whether it is due to bad script writing, but it is there never the less.
However, having said all of that, the film isn't a total loss. If you put your brain on hold for a couple of hours and just enjoy the action and suspense of it all (without trying to compare it to the first film), then you will probably come away thinking that it was an average bit of action film making with a very strong lead character (Chris Lambert).
The first Fortress film was original.. The whole movie centered around Chris Lambert's character trying his best to escape from the prison complex. Added to that was the twist of his wife and unborn child becoming a conquest for the main villain to master. In the first film, the other characters were interesting, each with his own personality and reason to be on Chris Lambert's "Team".
In contrast, Fortress 2 seems to plod along. The character seems to muck around within the prison for a long while before we see any movement towards escape. When he finally does escape (and if you consider knowing that he DOES escape is a spoiler, then you are naive, since it is obvious that the end product of the movie will be the character escaping) it all seems so easy and not really that difficult to do at all (unlike the first film, where a lot of movie time was spent planning the escape). He pulls of amazing computer-related feats as well as succeeding in kicking as many butts as possible, all within about 20 minutes.
The other characters in this film are kind of cardboard and one-dimensional. You never get to know the support characters in the film the way you did in the first one and therefore you don't really care whether they live or die. At one point in the film, a character removes his face mask and Chris Lambert's character recognises him. However, both my girlfriend and I were not quite so quick, and spend about 5 minutes trying to work out who the character was and why Chris Lambert's character felt so betrayed by him. This definetly demonstrates that the characters are not very memorable. I am not sure whether this is due to the fact that Chris Lambert wanted a bigger role in this film or whether it is due to bad script writing, but it is there never the less.
However, having said all of that, the film isn't a total loss. If you put your brain on hold for a couple of hours and just enjoy the action and suspense of it all (without trying to compare it to the first film), then you will probably come away thinking that it was an average bit of action film making with a very strong lead character (Chris Lambert).