Operation: Overlord

I saw this film at the Philadelphia Film Festival and I had a good time watching it. It's a very intense movie with a lot of action throughout; it never has a moment where it calms down. I like that aspect of it but I can definitely see it being sensory overload for a lot of people. It's also quite graphic, and sometimes it's a little gratuitous and overly gory. I think the film relies a little too much on jump scares but the atmosphere is pretty creepy anyway. I think towards the end the film gets pretty over-the-top and silly, but I think it's an interesting setting and it's very well-shot and the VFX are pretty good.

Fun war movie with a horror twist. On its face, it is a procedural military mission - get in and do the thing to support the impending Allied invasion. The horror twist comes when the soldiers discover some strange stuff happening in the village. Medical experiments are being performed to transform normal humans into super soldiers. The mission now becomes twofold: destroy the tower and destroy the lab! Nothing particularly special or innovative about the story, but it was wildly entertaining and enjoyable. Very exciting edge-of-your-seat action scenes, well-performed roles, top-notch special effects, and solid jump scares. We watched it in the Dolby theater at AMC Metreon in SF. It was super loud and the place was rocking!

A black soldier in a white unit during WW2!! I understand the need for inclusion and im black, but in these kind of stories inspired by real events its better to stick as close as possible to History; otherwise it diminishes the struggles, sacrifices and accomplishments of those people back in those days. He could have been separated from his unit during the jump and joined the others on the ground.

At one stage thought to be some form of Cloverfield sequel/prequel, thanks to the association with wonder producer J.J Abrams and his production company Bad Robot, Overlord is very much a film set in its own universe that takes us on a gore filled World War 2 set adventure to occupied France, as a small collection of American soldiers discover that German run labs are not the ideal place to spend time in.

Directed by upcoming Australian filmmaker Julius Avery whose previous film Son of a Gun showed much promise, Overlord does a lot with its relatively small budget of $38 million as we are thrust into the D-Day invasion and follow a collection of paratroopers on a mission to destroy a German radio bunker set up at the base of an old church building.

It's not being over the top when you say the first 10 - 20 minutes of Avery's film are some of the most thrilling and dazzling of the last 12 months, with the audience given barely a moment to breathe as the films stunning opening set-piece takes place and we launch out of an under fire carrier plane with Jovan Adepo's Boyce and his fellow soldiers.

If Overlord had somehow managed to keep this pace, intensity and style up, Avery's film would be a dead-set undeniable gem but sadly the film unleashes its best too early as the film around it, whilst often entertaining and gloriously over the top, just never quite delivers the thrills, spills and chills like you'd wished it had done.

Truly becoming the cinematic equivalent of the famous Wolfenstein video game series (which must've been a direct inspiration for this tale), Overlord's mix of war time action, sci-fi, straight up visceral horror (found within the Nazi's underground labs) and thriller doesn't always hold up, even if it's great to see a film of this ilk play it completely straight with Overlord forgoing laughs as there's no winking to the camera as the nefarious goings on begin to take hold.

It's a gore-filled and claret flowing exercise, with Avery clearly at home with the action side of things and a little less so at character building, with side players like Wyatt Russell's knuckle-duster loving Ford, John Magaro's stereotypical Italian solider and Mathilde Ollivier's token French female tomboy Chloe having fun but remaining fairly forgettable with Game of Thrones star Pilou Asbæk stealing the acting show with his turn as evil Nazi Wafner.

You never regret going along for this ride with enough imagination, impressive make-up and special effects and darkly imagined horrors such a soldiers traumatic return from death keeping things moving and ever watchable, you just can't help but feel like Overlord had the potential to become a genuine classic of its genre mash-up.

Final Say -

There's a lot to like about Overlord (an unfortunate box-office dud) that's likely to find a much a larger audience on home release but despite its many strengths and standout individual scenes, this Wolfenstein come to life is a mostly enjoyable but mostly forgettable affair.

3 bullet wounds out of 5

It's D-day. A squad of paratroopers are tasked with destroying a radio tower on top of a church. Their plane is shot down. After their leader gets shot by the Nazis and one steps on a landmine, four survivors remain. They find refuge with a scavenger named Chloe. The Nazis are experimenting on the locals at the church.

It's a horror story within a historical event. It has a good amount of action and thrills. The characters are compelling. It's always nice to have Nazi villains. It may not be completely new. It is not trying to be break new ground. It's a well-made B-movie and that's commendable.