Fantastic Fest 2018: OVERLORD Review – The Best WOLFENSTEIN Movie We Could Ask For
Starring Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Pilou Asbæk
Written by Billy Ray, Mark L. Smith
Directed by Julius Avery
I can’t even put a number to how many years I’ve been wanting a film adaptation of Wolfenstein. After such a long time killing Nazis, monsters, and Nazi monsters, I wanted the opportunity to sit back and let others do the work for me, all with a Hollywood budget. Hence why I’ve been so excited for Overlord, the J.J. Abrams-produced featured that’s all about American soldiers slaughtering Nazis and their nightmarish laboratory experiments. Having just walked out of the world premiere at Fantastic Fest, that desire has pretty much been 100% met.
The film follows Boyce (Adepo), a private with a kind heart who is about to parachute into Nazi-infested France ahead of D-Day. Their mission? To blow up a tower that is jamming radio signals before the invasion begins, just a few hours away. However, it turns out that the tower rests on a church where horrible experiments are being conducted on local villagers, turning them into ghoulish creatures that are super strong and capable of super healing.
Loaded to the brim with action, heavy practical FX, and delightful gore, Overlord is undoubtedly exciting with some truly exhilarating sequences. Director Julius Avery weaves the cameras through elaborate and expansive sets that ooze “Evil Nazi stronghold”.
The opening is a wonderfully tense sequence with American planes being shot at and downed, explosions lighting the sky and bullets shredding through metal as though it were paper. Think a far more videogame version of Band of Brothers‘ second episode “Day of Days”.
Adepo and his small team who survived the parachute drop are your standard stereotypical group. There’s a photographer/historian, the wisecracking guy with a Brooklyn accent, the Jew (gotta have a Yid killing Nazis, right?), and the hardass but ultimately noble leader, played here by Wyatt Russell. While they are entertaining, don’t expect to become emotionally attached to a single one of them.
Those who think the film can be likened to Wolfenstein aren’t wrong in the slightest. But they’re are also nods to Resident Evil (William Birkin’s self-imposed infection/transformation) as well as Texas Chain Saw Massacre (hanging hooks are a bitch), and The Thing (flamethrowers FTW).
A gripe includes an overly long second act that spends way too much time in Chloe’s (Mathilde Ollivier) house figuring out their next steps. When the movie is built on a “ticking clock” mechanic, such lulls stick out like a sore thumb. Additionally, Asbæk’s Wafner doesn’t need to resort to sexual assaults for is to find him evil. He’s a Nazi. That’s evil enough.
Lastly, while the movie does a great job of almost entirely embracing its B-movie attitude, it’s that “almost” that I definitely felt. It’s as though it wasn’t willing to fully commit to its insane premise. When we see a severed head, with its spine dangling, pleading for help but we never really see anything similar to that again, it feels like we weren’t given the full package.
But a ton of Nazis die. Color me highly satisfied.
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Overlord
Summary
Overlord gave me exactly what I wanted. Tight, fun, vicious, and brimming with practical FX gore, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a film as gleefully bloody this year. Nazi zombie punks, fuck off!
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