Overlord
3 stars
Director: James Gray
Stars: Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier
Duration: 110 mins
Class: 18
KRS Releasing Ltd
D-Day is approaching fast. A team of American paratroopers are dropped into Nazi-occupied France to destroy a radio transmitter that sits on top of a church; a mission that is crucial for the Allied troops to avoid detection.
The church is heavily defended by German soldiers. Yet, as the Americans find out, the soldiers are not their biggest obstacle. For, beneath the church’s floor, lies a Nazi laboratory where horrific experiments are being carried out on innocent humans, the results of which are terrifying and dangerous.
Overlord is produced by J.J. Abrams, one of Hollywood’s most prolific producer/writer/directors working today on both the small and big screens. With a nose for great action, it is no wonder he saw great potential in this war film/monster movie mashup that he has overseen and which will undoubtedly appeal to fans of both genres.
Based on a screenplay by Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith and directed by Julius Avery, the film’s strongest point is its seamless blending of the realistic and the fantastical.
Opening in the cabin of a military transport plane as the paratroopers approach the drop zone, the film immediately establishes the scene as a team of war veterans and newbies prepare for the mission with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
The actual politics of war are ignored for a slice of B-movie fantasy
Yet, no amount of planning prepares them for the moment out of the blue when the planes comes under attack and hurtles towards the ground enveloped in hellfire, and the soldiers are forced to jump earlier than planned.
Landing in the cover of darkness, a handful of survivors stealthily weave their way into the village, determined to carry out the mission, to stake out the church where they bump into a young woman, who luckily proves very efficient with a gun. She offers the soldiers shelter in the house she shares with her little brother.
Up to this point, Overlord establishes its war movie credentials effectively enough. Tension and drama slowly play up as the soldiers, crippled though they are by the loss of the majority of their platoon, revisit their plans to get to their objective.
Needless to say, the actual politics of war are ignored for a slice of B-movie fantasy, which is fine. Yet, the horror part of Overlord does not work as well as what came before.
Despite its excellent segue from one movie genre to another, it does not fully live up to its promise. Yes, there is a huge, cavernous lab, with its ghastly machines and pipes and glass cases in which human/monster hybrids are being spawned, overseen by a short, bespectacled Nazi scientist in a white lab coat. Plenty of effort clearly went into the creating of this horror show, with all its bloody, mangled bodies, exploding body parts, and gruesome humanoid creatures. But, suspenseful though it may be at times, it never really translates into effective scares, leading to an ending that is a tad anti-climactic.
The main protagonists are quite stereotypically drawn, but the ensemble cast makes the most of it, injecting enough charisma in their respective roles for us to care for them. So we have the strong, silent leader type (Corporal Ford, played by Wyatt Russell); Private Boyce (Jovan Alepo), a newbie who ultimately proves to be one of the stronger players in the outfit; the obnoxious and wise-cracking Tibbett (John Magaro); the quiet, unassuming war photographer Chase (Iain De Caestecker); the feisty OFC (only female character) in Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier); and the villainous SS officer Wafner (Pilou Asbaek).
It all comes together pretty well. It’s grim at times, gritty always, sporadically funny, and sometimes a tad ridiculous. That said, Overlord never pretends to be anything other than what it actually is, providing a couple of hours of stylish and outlandish entertainment.