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It's a real shame people are dissing the trailers for Fortress entirely on the special effects, if you look at the trailer on YouTube you are bound to find the usual "This is worse than PS2 graphics!" quote.Yes, the special effects in Fortress are not the greatest but it has a good story with well developed characters and good performances to go along with them.If you stick around to the end of the credits there is a little message from the filmmakers stating they know about errors but really wanted to make a film that honored the bomber crews of WWII.For the filmmakers dedication and sincere motives, I seriously recommend Fortress, the passion and energy the filmmakers put into the film shows and as a result Fortress is a great entertaining film.
Matthew Toledo
Historically accurate, this well-intentioned, well written, and adequately acted film suffers only from an insufficient budget. Inversely, the blockbuster Pearl Harbor (2001), which had a huge budget and seamless special effects, suffered from poor acting, historical inaccuracies, and poor storytelling. In all honesty, I liked Fortress better.The extreme accuracy and attention to detail during the battle sequences showcases director Mike Phillips' knowledge of aviation battle tactics that he gained while making dozens of television documentaries for the History Channel, including the series Dogfights. The various plane's flight characteristics are meticulously re-created. It's as close as you're ever going to get to a real battle in a WWII bomber. Likewise, the banter between the airmen on the ground is also period appropriate and well written, if not always well executed. Also, tighter editing would help the pace of the second act.The budget for Fortress was only around 3.5 million and they did an amazing amount with the money. The computer-generated graphics, while several steps above the graphics seen on shows like Dogfights, are still at times obviously computer generated and almost game-like, especially the wide shots of the base. That makes sense, because it's the same special effects company that did the fight sequences for the show, Dogfights. There are also a lot shots of actors standing in front of obvious green screens and excessive tight close ups to avoid the cost of computer- generating aircraft and equipment in the background.If only this film had a budget of around 20 million and wider distribution. Then, perhaps they could have afforded to stand in front of an actual real plane or have a few fly-overs by authentic aircraft on a real replica base instead of a digital base. A larger budget would have helped attract a potential star actor. Again, while the acting is solid and by no means horrible, there is no stand-out performance. It's like watching a really well- acted television show.Combine all the obvious love and attention for this project with an ending that's exciting and unexpected and, overall, Fortress is a decent film if you can suspend your disbelief during the occasional low-budget digital shots. Watch it on a lazy Sunday afternoon once the chores are finished.
Theo Robertson
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is one of the enduring icons from the second world war . Its sister aircraft the B-24 Liberator was considered a better aircraft due to having a slightly larger bomb load , having a slightly better range and being built in larger numbers and yet it's the B-17 that's much better remembered as the iconic American bomber of WW2 . Possibly this is down to it being a popular aircraft with its crew . The B-17 could absorb an unbelievable amount of punishment and unlike say the British Lancaster bomber it was a relatively easy aircraft to exit from if the crew had to bail out This straight to DVD movie titled FORTRESS is inspired by true events and does try to do something different with the war genre by set in North Africa where the American Army Air Corps are flying missions over Italy . It's a quickly forgotten fact from history that there were more Italian civilians killed by allied air raids than there were Britons killed by Luftwaffe air raids so at least this film is trying to do something slightly different via its setting The film then decides not to make the most of things . Yhe characters are caricatures of those cheeky Yanks who are always on the make and are getting up to jobs on the side such as starting a bootleg business on distilling air fuel in to alcoholic hooch . I found it difficult to buy in to the characters here as being anything more than characters in a movie The flying sequences themselves are equally unconvincing and give the impression that they were created via computer software . That is because they are created via CGI and reminded me of the equally unconvincing scenes seen in the 2006 World War One aviation film FLYBOYS . That said FORTRESS is a straight to DVD war film while FLYBOYS was a major big budget cinema release so I guess the audience should be slightly more forgiving towards FORTRESS which incidentally might confuse the audience in to thinking they're going to be watching a prison film down to the title
