Geek Review: Overlord

What happens when you take the cataclysmic mayhem of zombie flicks and mush it with the equally inhumane horrors of World War II? Well, you get two hours of unapologetic, gore-spotted, bullet-spraying, Nazi-slaying, bomb-rigging, dick-stabbing action that is Overlord.

The ground covered here isn’t new, as more recently, video games have merged military shooters with the gut-spilling splatter of zombie-infestation, but Overlord doesn’t merely borrow heavily from the familiar, as it tries to craft a supernatural war movie with mad science.

Overlord opens in the near claustrophobia-inducing cabin of an airlifter, transporting a squad of American soldiers to a church in France, where the German troops have set up a radio tower jamming all Allied signal transmissions — because they’re “rotten sons of bitches”, we’re informed, veritable demons with no respect for God whatsoever.

And within the first ten minutes of nerve-fuelled, good-natured ribbing, we get a pretty good sense of our cast — led by the high-strung and tender-hearted Private Boyce, played by Jovan Adepo (Mother!, Sorry for Your Loss).

The title makes a lot more sense when we learn that our protagonists are tasked to take out the Germans’ tower to facilitate air support for the battle of Normandy, which — if you’re familiar with your WWII history — is codenamed Operation Overlord. As their plane is beset by gunfire, the previously calm skies turn to a blazing inferno. Bravado quickly crumples into panic, and the situation rapidly descends into unmitigated chaos, just as the plane does. The soldiers are hastily chucked off their aircraft, parachute strapped to their backs. And in a show of heartfelt camaraderie, Boyce promises his equally unnerved friend, Rosenfield, played by Dominic Applewhite (The King’s Speech), that he’ll be right behind him — before he’s launched into a disorienting freefall that’s shot close-up, which really comes off as a creative workaround for a tight budget.

As Boyce reconvenes with the rest of the survivors, while calling for an unfortunately missing Rosenfield, we witness a couple of deaths in quick succession. They take a toll on our ever compassionate hero, and truly hit home that war is brutal, reminding us that every loss isn’t just a number on a census, despite what the battle-weary Corporal Ford will have Boyce (and by extension, us) believe.

Played by Wyatt Russell (Shimmer Lake, Blaze), the stoic corporal is intent on seeing his mission to fruition, with what little remains of his squad hopefully coming out alive. The alpha male panders to a more traditional, hegemonic notion of masculinity, and immediately establishes rapport with the according audience demographic.

 

Nevertheless, his almost callous focus is tempered by a nobler instinct to protect those less capable of protecting themselves. Ford acts as the perfect foil to our primary antagonist, the dastardly German Officer Wafner — Pilou Asbæk (Ghost in the Shell, Woodshock) — who displays an utter lack of remorse in torturing perfectly hapless civilians, and using his military clout to coerce a woman into having sex. The woman in question is Chloe, a French veterinarian-to-be who willingly houses our protagonists as they dodge Nazi troops whilst planning their tower assault, showing incredible resource and resolve. The only woman with a decent amount of screentime, actress Mathilde Ollivier delivers the character with a convincing mix of wary pluck and beaten resignation. Chloe’s younger brother is the film’s perfunctory symbol of untarnished innocence and forms an unlikely, endearing bond with the caustic soldier, Tibbet, played by John Magaro (Marshall, Jack Ryan) — tugging on more than a few heartstrings.

When Boyce heroically (also foolishly, in Ford’s eyes) rescues Chloe from Wafner’s unwanted advances, our ragtag team of survivors are forced to expedite their plan of action. The scene that follows is really where your suspension of disbelief comes into play — not because of the groaning mutilated bodies or mucusy adult-sized pseudo-wombs suspended over a Dreaded Pit of Doom, which comes with the zombie-human experimentation territory, or even the very video-game-inspired cinematography. It’s Boyce’s near-supernatural good fortune that boggles the mind, as he somehow stumbles into the German base, completely by accident, then cluelessly wanders about the place, discovering all sorts of things about their zombie-making endeavours, whilst coming across no guards and triggering no alarms. For a facility housing highly sensitive research, their security is apparently, absolutely crap. Maybe that’s why they lost the war.

Oh and to add insult to injury, Boyce somehow rescues his aforementioned friend, Rosenfield, off an operating table, and they bust open a drain cover to escape — via loud, repeated kicking — with no one the wiser.

Unfathomable security breach aside, the film does get you rooting for its protagonists when they eventually head back to the labs to blow everything to hell. A zombified Wafner makes an appearance, predictably, and faces off with Corporal Ford, providing an opening for Boyce’s Big Damned Hero moment — he makes the most of the moment with immense dramatic relish. The ending ties up quite nicely with American troops swooping in under a banner of victory because… That’s what they do. While Director Julius Avery has taken some artistic liberty, it’s almost definitely a foregone conclusion that the Allies win.

At the very least, our protagonists’ victory feels more hard-won than self-congratulatory. Seemingly out of place amidst the violence, Boyce makes a compellingly genuine character that’ll elicit emotions more nuanced than simple adrenaline. If you’re out looking for a wild, action-heavy, flame-throwing, blood-spurting zombie flick, you’ll find all that in Overlord — and more.