Summary:
A group of American soldiers stumble upon a Nazi experiment after being dropped behind enemy lines on the eve of D-Day.
My Thoughts:
Alright, alright, alright... this is my kind of Blockbuster. It’s intense, brutal, invokes a fantasy/sci-fi twist, and best of all, it’s a relatively original concept (I mean, it’s pretty much Call of Duty Nazi-zombies… but the first decent movie we’ve gotten about them… aside from “Dead Snow”…).
It may not be a perfect film; it certainly suffers from some clichés and predictability towards the end of the movie, some of the pacing might be a little uneven, and some of the CGI mightn’t look the greatest, but hey, overall, Overlord is a freaking blast. In today’s market, supersaturated with superhero films and endless sequels, it’s fantastic to see a moderate budget film with this much ambition and executed this well. Again, this is not a perfect film, but for those who find themselves constantly complaining about how unimaginative Blockbusters are and how unwilling Hollywood is to take a chance on new ideas, this movie is like a glass of lukewarm water at the end of a desert- it might not be the ice-cold glass of water that you yearned for, but it’s enough to quench your thirst.
“A thousand year Reich needs thousand year soldiers.”
On the eve of D-Day, American soldiers are flown over enemy lines in order to take out a radio tower, but during the initial approach the squad is gunned down and it’s members scattered. As the Nazi enemies scour the countryside for survivors a soldiers Boyce (Jovan Adepo, “Fences”) and Ford (Wyatt Russell, “Ingrid Goes West”) run into Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier, “The Misfortunes of Francois Jane”), a French woman living under Nazi rule. Chloe agrees to take the soldiers to their destination to thwart the Nazis, but along the way they stumble upon a nightmarish lab where Nazi scientists are performing dark experiments.
So, first and foremost, this is a film that blends two genres that seldom come together almost seamlessly (war and horror). Honestly, the film would’ve been perfectly fine as just a war movie: the basic premise before the twist is simple enough, and the locations and designs of the sets are relatively accurate (basing my accuracy on other movies), but the plot is perfect for that horror twist that comes about halfway through the film. However, for people who gravitate towards general war movies with epic action sequences, there’s enough of that to appease any WW2 nut. The opening sequence where the soldiers are being shot at as they approach the drop zone alone was worth seeing it in theaters in my opinion. While there are a few moments of questionable CGI, there is one hectic shot that stretches for more than a minute, and it is incredible. The horror elements too would be enough to satisfy any genre-hardened fan. While I wont say the film was as terrifying as other great contemporaries like “Hereditary”, it does do a great job of creating an intense atmosphere that works to the benefit for the tone of the film. There are also some surprisingly (fantastic) gory moments in this movie, which sort of surprised me for how mainstream it is (Bad Robot and J.J. Abrams produced).
Again, the movie is not perfect, but it does provide an enjoyable ride with some exhilarating twists and turns. If you don’t catch it in theaters then do your best to see it on video. It’s certainly worth seeing, and it’s sort of cathartic watching Nazis get blown to bits after all the Alt Right crap going on in the world today.
Verdict
This is a flawed film that provides more than enough entertainment for me to forgive the little issues here and there. As far as blockbusters, this is one of the better ones I’ve seen this year (what else did we get this year? "Venom”, “The Meg”, “Rampage”… and all those were garbage). It’s fast paced, brutal, and honestly just a blast to watch.
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