Since its September premiere at Austin's Fantastic Fest, director Julius Avery's Overlord has been compared to a wide variety of video games, including Wolfenstein, Call of Duty Zombies, and so on. As someone who plays almost no video games, I figured this particular comparison point would be of zero use to me. But I didn't anticipate just how much Overlord would feel like a video game; or, more specifically, a single level of a video game. As a fairly limited and contained story, it feels like we're just getting a taste of a bigger world of underground World War II terror (and no, it's not the Cloverfield universe, as was once rumored by industry pundits). And yet above all else, Avery's second feature is a prime example of a specific kind of functional, goal-oriented storytelling that feels like a game in practice. A group of soldiers need to blow up a tower to help D-Day succeed- it's just unfortunate that a group of Nazi zombies stand directly in their way.
Overlord's directness and simplicity led critic William Bibbiani to label it on Twitter as a great example of the "Four-Star Three-Star Movie," which he defines as "films that are as good as they could possibly be, but which could only ever be so good." It's a fun term, though I think it's a really nice way of pointing out that everything in Overlord is operating on the surface level. Even though neither element is a requirement of the genre, complex characters and weighty themes are nowhere to be found here. We're spared too many self-aware "war is hell" nudges (get it, because this is close to actual hell), yet we're also deprived of the kind of moments that could provide any real introspection or depth. The film is constantly pushing forward with a "go, go. go" attitude, but at what cost?
Still, don't let these nitpicks concern you- Overlord is still super enjoyable. Watching Nazis get annihilated shouldn't be cathartic in 2018, but here we are.
First, the set-up. Avery and screenwriter Billy Ray start with a bang, introducing us to a squadron of soldiers flying into the depths of hell on D-Day. Unfortunately, the plane explodes minutes into the film, killing several of the men aboard. After one crazy crash landing, only a handful of soldiers are still alive: Boyce (Jovan Adepo), Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russell), Tibbet (John Magaro), and Chase (Iain De Caestecker). They're close to a crucial German radio tower in a French village, which puts them in a prime position to make a difference. If they can take down that tower, the Nazis won't be able to communicate with their planes for air support. If they can take down that tower, victory for the Allies is all but assured.
But when the soldiers get to the village, they realize something is up. Boyce and friends receive help from crafty villager Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier), who provides shelter and assistance in their big plot. However, there's a complication: Chloe's aunt is very sick, and it doesn't seem like a normal illness. And when Boyce stumbles into the laboratory below the tower, he'll discover what's really going down in this sleepy town. The Nazis are forcing villagers to participate in cruel and inhuman experiments, and they seem to have created a serum that brings the dead back to life. So not only do our plucky heroes have to fight Nazis- they also have to take down the soldiers of the Thousand Year Reich.
As you can almost certainly tell from this synopsis, Overlord is pure pulp. It begins with the Paramount logo and a series of shots in black-and-white, followed by the film's title in big, bold, retro letters. That sense of grimy, old-school energy permeates the entire film, seeping into everything from John Magaro's broad, gum-snapping performance to Jed Kurzel's wonderfully bombastic musical score. Going along with this grungy charm, you can see the evidence of a lower visual effects budget in certain scenes, especially in the more CGI-driven war set-pieces. But where the film lacks in digital pizzazz, Avery more than makes up for it with a kind of immersive, full-body approach to the action. Yes, the whole thing is almost egregiously loud at times, but it puts you right in the thick of the chaos in a striking way. The opening scene? It's as brilliant as you've heard.
Nonetheless, I find that I must slightly disagree with Bibbiani's assessment, simply because I'm not sure Overlord is quite as good as it could be. If we're keeping up with the video game metaphor, this film often feels like a bunch of propulsive, thrilling cut-scenes, interrupted by a series of meandering gameplay moments where people walk around hallways and talk about strategy (I know I said I don't play, but I know enough to get by). Take the first act for example. We begin with a thrilling, crazy action scene, followed by.......a lot of walking and talking. Sometimes this walking and talking is productive! We learn about the characters, their lives back home, etc. Other times, it feels like Avery is just killing time for no reason. This is a frequent repetition in Overlord, and it grows frustrating after a while.
On a more specific note, I also wish we knew more about exactly what led to the creation of the Nazi zombies. I mean, this theoretically isn't something you should have to justify in a genre exercise. But when the main villain (Pilou Asbæk) makes an offhand comment about the serum being lodged in the ground somehow, I feel like we deserve a better explanation.
Logistics and narrative wheel-spinning aside (there's no reason this movie should run 110 minutes), Overlord succeeds at its core task- delivering nasty, vicious gore on a spectacular scale. The violence and carnage here never quite got under my skin like, say, Suspiria (review's coming, I promise!), but Avery stages some crazy bits that made me physically jump out of my seat. There are a few body horror moments that are pretty out-there, as well as some freaky monster mayhem guaranteed to shock audiences. I live for madness like this, so I was glad to see this gory spectacle unfold- even if I wanted some of the core villains to meet their demise in a more satisfying fashion.
In a funny way, I feel like that sentence pretty much sums up the entire experience. Avery and company don't get everything right, but there's enough here to make it all work. Likable heroes in Adepo, Ollivier, and Russell, enough nutty bloodshed to satisfy the gorehounds, a sufficient amount of pulpiness- with all this in mind, it's easy to brush off the missteps. And if this is just one level of a greater Nazi-hunting game, I'd love to see these characters back for another round or two.
THE FINAL GRADE: B (7.2/10)
Image: Paramount/IMDb
Poster courtesy of Paramount
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