Overlord (2018) – Film Review
“The story of two American soldiers behind enemy lines on D-Day.” That’ll draw in—and infuriate—the veterans, this remembrance weekend…
They don’t play “Hell’s Bells” one time in this whole feature. I’m genuinely mad about this—too many times does a film’s trailer use a well-known tune, only to not have it in the final cut. They could clearly afford it…
And this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of gripes I have about Overlord.
A good war film, surely, one thing this piece does right above all else is immersion. I think the sound was a little too sharp in the theatre—one of the speaker braces behind the screen sounded like it was rattling during the louder moments, like a machine gun (fitting). From the opening pre-drop scene on the Warbird, though, my pulse never lowered from “pounding” until the credits rolled. This piece is intense, I’ll give it that; even the unfortunately-schlocky, underdeveloped, and, frankly, unnecessary zombie element kept me on the edge of my seat.
The cast isn’t bad. I had two favorites—the lead guy, Joven Adepo (Fences), and Mathilde Ollivier in her first “big” role—but everyone else is passable or, again, unnecessary. There for fluff. John Magaro’s token racist Brooklynite(?) to goad Adepo’s unlikely protagonist type, especially, has an undeserved completion to his arc; his tone shifts at the snap of the fingers, between one scene and the next, and then he’s all buddy-buddy? Nope… Just one of many instances where I sensed hasty cutting-room edits, in an attempt to chop this down to less than two hours (before trailers). Cool to see Bokeem Woodbine (Spider-Man: Homecoming, The Rock) and Iain De Caestecker (Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD), if only for a moment.
I won’t call it false advertising. We get everything that happens in the trailer, but that makes it feel like more fleshed-out than the piece really is. Granted, I like a little mystery to my macabre, but…give me something to latch onto! It’s like the filmmakers had an idea for a Saving Private Ryan- or Band of Brothers-style war flick, and the studio mandated a supernatural element (no matter how half-assed), because they’d already slated it for near-Halloween theatrical release. Also, with J.J. Abrams’s name attached, I thought for sure this would be some contrived Cloverfield tie-in (and, with that franchise, I’ve no problem with “contrived”), but…nope, we aren’t even paid that respect. I was waiting, waiting for a post-credits scene that never came. Everything tied up so neatly in the end, as well, that the rest of the piece may well have never happened at all.
Lots of shock and uncomfortable moments of gore and refuse with little need for it. The final product we got can’t be what the filmmakers set out to produce. It’s certainly not a complete narrative…
Final ‘Risk Assessment: ***/**. I had fun with Overlord, certainly, but with everything except the Nazi zombie bits; sadly, walking out of a movie like this, I’d’ve been more entertained—and more willing to entertain a higher score—if this was more a tribute to the war epics of old, instead of a tongue-in-cheek fan-fiction of the exhausted Call of Duty multiplayer shamble-fest.
Next review: The Grinch (2018)
