Overlord marries World War II and...zombies?
World War II is a veritable mine field when it comes to movie premises. In the simplest terms, the time period comes prepackaged with conventional heroes and villains, a save the world plot, and every action movie cliché possible.
There’s drama, patriotism, tragedy, and violence at every turn. Later U.S. wars have some of these ideas, but many of them are far more dubious on the ethics front. There’s never been a more noble cause than stopping the Nazi war machine.
As such, there are likely as many Hollywood World War II movies as there are superhero movies—and just like superhero movies, there’s no end in sight. Not that there’s anything wrong with that necessarily. It’s just that filmmakers have mined so much out of the time period that it often glosses over the evil of war.
But then, some of my favorite movies involve wars, particularly those in the stars, so maybe I should stop my hand wringing and just enjoy the action. This is exactly what the latest World War II inspired film Overlord hopes for.
It’s not especially accurate and doesn’t have much interest in presenting a fair view of history. Rather, it wants to play around in the setting, so that it can create a relatively original action/horror film for audiences that enjoy that sort of thing.
I say relatively original because the entire time I watched the film I was reminded of one of my seminal video game experiences. Overlord, I think, owes a lot to the Wolfenstein video game series. Started in 1981, the series follows adventurers as they seek to escape the famed Castle Wolfenstein, a German castle overrun by Nazis with a variety of nefarious purposes.
It was 1992’s Wolfenstein 3D that popularized the first person shoot genre, and the first video game I remember to introduce me to the horrors of Nazi experimentation. As the series progresses, the enemies get weirder—from robotic mecha-Hitler to zombie resurrection.
Of course, the supernatural is nothing new in films featuring Nazi’s—Indiana Jones famous kept the Ark of the Covenant out of the hands of the Third Reich. Overlord follows in these footsteps, but to its credit waits quite a bit of time before diving headfirst into the crazy. It begins by plunging the audience headfirst into tense battles before the Normandy invasion.
Our heroes are tasked with parachuting behind enemy lines to bring down a radio tower that is blocking allied transmissions—transmissions necessary to provide air support for the coming battle.
Only a small group manages to reach the French town occupied by German forces and what they find is far more than a radio tower—there is evil under the church, with world-ending implications.
Overlord is tense and creative, uncompromising in its gore and violence. Many of the effects appeared to be practical, and those that weren’t didn’t distract from the story. Performances by the cast were effective and entertaining. They sold the movie, taking it seriously when it would have been easy to play it as goofy.
Additionally, the casting appears to have been somewhat colorblind, showing that audiences don’t really care what actors play what roles, so long as the lines and scenes are executed effectively. The film was directed by Julius Avery, a relative newcomer with one feature under his belt and a handful of short films. It seems that producer J.J. Abrams saw something in the director and the project, and was willing to push the film into theaters.
Avery is slated to directed the re-boot of Flash Gordan, which is currently announced but not yet in production. Given Avery’s success here, particularly on the visual side of things, I’m more excited about that film than I might have been.
Again, Overlord isn’t a film for history buffs. It’s a genre film that only uses the setting as a jumping off point to tell a crazy, fun story.
The first part of the film is more grounded than the last, but overall this film has more in common with Ilsa the She Wolf than Saving Private Ryan.
Anyone that is a fan of genre film will likely enjoy Overlord. It’s a good way to kill an afternoon.