Bullet Points: Overlord

If you’ve read my review of Ghost Brigade then you might know that I absolutely love movies that blend history with something as crazy as a good zombie film. It probably took me too long to review Overlord but I have always held out hope that somehow it would still be connected to my beloved Cloverfield franchise. I just love it when they do that. Either way, Overlord does something that deserves more eyes on it.

Synopsis: A small group of American soldiers are tasked with taking out a Nazi tower in advance of the D-Day invasion. The horrors that wait for them below ground, however, will test them greater than anything they could have imagined.

• The Drop: The film starts off hot! The airborne soldiers are on a transport plane en route to their drop zone and we get to learn a little about each of the main players. It’s clear right away that Jovan Adepo’s Boyce and Wyatt Russell’s Ford are going to be our main dudes. We also get to meet their tough Sgt. played by Bokeem Woodbine. The drop doesn’t go as planned and the planes get blown to smithereens and the men are left strewn all over the battlefield. It’s a pretty wild scene especially since it was filmed mostly with practical effects.
• The Tattered Few: Boyce and Ford both survive the drop but they witness the unfortunate execution of Bokeem at the hands of the Nazis. Bastards! The two men catch up with a few other soldiers who survived the jump and Ford takes charge as the ranking man. He’s bound and determined to take out the Nazi tower which was the mission all along.

• Meet the Men: Overlord plays it smart by having most of the characters just be stereotypes or caricatures of men in other movies. Have you seen Saving Private Ryan? Well, you won’t be lost if you turn Overlord on 12 minutes in. It’s a smart thing to do for a movie like this where there isn’t a lot of time to learn backstories and origins for everyone. I don’t care why the dude is a sniper but I understand that he is one when he carries the rifle and talks about finding a better vantage point. We also get to learn a little more about Boyce and Ford. Boyce is the unlikely hero that you expect and Ford is the badass veteran who is there for a purpose. I’m certain these guys will be fast friends.
• Enter Chloe: Just when you thought you had already fallen in love with your wife or whoever, Mathilde Ollivier shows up as Chloe and totally changes your world. She ends up becoming the biggest asset to the American GIs as the make the attempt to take out the Nazi tower. She comes with her own drama, of course, and we get to learn a bit about her as she and Boyd develop something of a budding relationship.

• Accidental Infiltration: Speaking of Boyce, a series of unfortunate events leave him seriously behind enemy lines. How on Earth did he get there unseen? Who cares. Just enjoy the madness that he sees and know that the mostly straight forward movie is about to get a whole lot weirder.
• Wafner the Evil: Danish actor Pilou Asbæk plays the German officer Wafner. He sucks in the way that any major Nazi officer should. Just putting on that German uniform immediately makes someone super unlikeable. Pilou does a great job building the tension in the movie as he does all he can to make Chloe and the American’s lives living hell.

• Don’t shoot, let’em burn: Oh man… the movie draws to a close and we’ve learned so much. The Germans are doing all sorts of scientific testing to turn people into crazy zombie/monster/creatures and most of the folks in the French town have been tested on. The Americans are the next ones to get poked and prodded and by the time that the soldiers have planned their new offensive on the Nazi tower, the situation is extremely dire. The creatures who have been turned so far have always been dead and haven’t survived long enough to make a difference but a major character get ahold of one of the syringes and changes the game.
• Shit gettin’ real: The movie turns into a definite action movie in the third act. The Americans are killing Nazis left and right and zombie dudes are killing all sorts of people. The action might look familiar to you in a WW2 movie but things start to change in the last few minutes and it goes from cool to awesome.

The Verdict: What a refreshingly entertaining movie. Overlord doesn’t waste any time blabbing about stuff that I didn’t care about and spent a good portion of it killing zombies and Nazis. Likable good guys and asshole bad guys are key and Overlord goes “hard in the paint” with it. Wyatt Russell is probably going to be a big star someday. Many of his lines, especially his final ones sound like they were said by his daddy. Don’t waste time thinking about how soldiers didn’t have beards or long hair or that the 101st didn’t have any black soldiers in real life when it’s so much easier to enjoy a movie about Nazi zombie warfare.