Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsAmazing Twists & Turns, I Never Guessed What Was Coming - Stunning Scenery is a Bonus!
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2015
It's an extraordinary introductory sequence: The elderly Henry Tyson is on an Arctic Circle beach. Except for the perfect blue-gray sky, the world is only two colors - the black sand of the beach and the white of the ocean's crashing waves and the man-sized blocks of ice they throw up. Tyson has a long lens on his camera, and clicks away, even though he's dressed in parka and hood and thick white gloves. Suddenly, he hears screaming. He pulls up his rifle, for you never walk outside town without your rifle, and looking through its scope he sees a man being eaten alive by a polar bear. He shoots, and kills the man. Immediately, the Sheriff is there and yells, "Henry! Get out of here. Just go home and leave this all to me." The show has only started and you already have questions, including : Did Henry mean to shoot the man?
The next scene starts 3 months later. The town of Fortitude, perched on an island in the Arctic Circle, needs to reinvent itself if it's going to survive. It has an international scientific Research Center, but other than that, the only jobs are with a mine that is played out and closing. Not worrying about that, though, two kids are playing along the snowy sides of a river-bed, and find a strange carcass. One pulls out a giant tooth to take home. It's the well-worn molar of a mammoth. Will this save Fortitude? Or will this destroy Fortitude?
"Fortitude" is a British series, but it feels stylized and Scandinavian - the latter not surprising given its location. Have you seen the Norwegian movie "Headhunters" or read the Swedish book "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"? That's the feeling in "Fortitude". Violence, including a couple scenes approaching a horror movie, secrets, mysteries, a little slow moving at times, and, above all, a feeling that this is a very dangerous world: "I am required to ask you if you feel safe in Fortitude". It is not until the last episode that a character finally voices a problem I had with a major plot point - sorry, but glaciers flow.
The DVD/BluRay sets have four discs each. Four discs hold 10 hours of an amazing show, divided into 12 episodes. This is like a really long movie, because the whole show covers one thing - what is going wrong in Fortitude. Mysteries and unanswered questions, unexpected twists, flashbacks fed to you parsimoniously, creepy conversations and one scene approaching horror. English subtitles are available.
There are also 33 minutes of Bonus Features on the last disc of the boxed sets. There are 17 features, no one totaling more than 3 minutes, and you can hit Play All and watch them as one. Take a look at this list of Bonus Feature commentators. You will see a lot of excellent and generous acting: "Sofie Grøbal (plays Governor Hildur Odegard), Patrick Spence (executive producer), Stanley Tucci (plays DCI Morton), Johnny Harris (plays Ronnie Morgan), Luke Treadaway (plays Vincent Rattrey), Christopher Eccleston (plays Professor Stoddard), Jenna Guillory (plays Natalie Yelburton), Michael Gambon (plays Henry Tyson), Richard Dormer (plays Sheriff Dan Anderssen), Jessica Raine (plays Jules Sutter), Nicholas Pinnock (plays Frank Sutter), Veronica Echegui (plays Elena Ledesma), Simon Donald (series creator), Matthew Bird (producer), Gemma Jackson (production designer), Barry Gingele (graphic designer), Dick Allen (art director) and Bill Turpin (make-up and prosthetics).
They filmed in Iceland in March, and Bird mentions: "The problem we've had with the snow is really simple. There isn't any. This time of year we were told, reliably, it would snow. And it's been the warmest winter on record."
Spence: "We use real snow, which we shift down from the mountains."
Bird: "If we need a large area covered, we'll get some [spray] foam." They've also used a "starch based product" and "snow candles".
Spence continues, during filming: "We are, as I understand it, currently the world's biggest buyer of snow-related products. Which is quite upsetting to be, when you've come to Iceland partly for the snow. Particularly ironic that we're bringing it over from London, where we've come from."
Johnny Harris says, "There's an old saying: 'You're as sick as your secrets.' " And Fortitude is very very sick.
A Series 2 is in production - and we'll see more of the few people of Fortitude who managed to live through Series 1.
A highly recommended series, but don't bring the kids. Language is not too bad, but there is full frontal nudity and a very lot of violence. In any case, this is not a fast-paced action thriller.
"It's Not Just the Cold That Kills"
That's the show's Tagline. Another could be "Innocence Is No Protection"
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