Overlord (2018)
Directed by Julius Avery
On the eve of D-Day, a team of American paratroopers crash behind enemy lines and come face-to-face with a Nazi threat unlike any the world has ever seen.
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Magaro and Ollivier are also quite good in their limited stints, but Russell, filling a role akin to his father Kurt’s badass John Carpenter roles in “The Thing” and “Escape from New York,” doesn’t quite seal the deal.
Russell dials down the aw-shucks charm he’s shown in previous roles, instead echoing the world-weariness his father demonstrated in John Carpenter’s The Thing (a clear spiritual cousin to Overlord ).
Director Julius Avery’s reference points don’t end there, reversing iconic imagery from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and staging a ghastly transformation sequence that conjures sensations of The Thing, a comparison aided by situating Kurt Russell’s son front and center amidst the chaos.
The characters fit certain “types” — Jovan Adepo as Boyce, the soldier too tender-hearted to even kill a mouse; Wyatt Russell as tough guy Ford, making a strong case for stepping into his father Kurt’s shoes should Hollywood ever attempt a second remake of The Thing ; Mathilde Ollivier as Chloe, the sole female presence; and Game of Thrones’ Pilou Asbæk as Wafner, the cartoonishly menacing Nazi officer — and they’re knocked down in the order you expect them to be.
While a big gory scene in an attic is an absolutely disturbing tribute to “The Thing,” there’s almost zero rationale for why Boyce would resort to desperate measures, in the first place.
In His Father’s (Bloody) Footsteps: Wyatt Russell has already forged a career much different than his father’s, but Overlord is notable for placing him in what ends up becoming a close-quarters horror movie a la The Thing .
Striking an exact balance between Saving Private Ryan and Frankenstein's Army (2013), this super-gory Nazi-zombie horror is great fun and unrelenting throughout its violent twists and atmospheric turns.
After a brutal opening sequence reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan , a small handful of soldiers meet up to complete their mission: They must disable a German radio tower so that the allies can provide air support during D-Day.
No sacrificing “one or the other” when it comes to Saving Private Ryan tactics vs. slobbering 28 Days Later speed chases once Bill Ray and Mark L. Smith’s screenplay faces its ultimate breaking point.
The characters may be “types” borrowed from scores of films (a sniper with a “Put me in range of Hitler” boast stolen straight from “Saving Private Ryan”), but every now and then, a funny line crosses their lips.
The inspiration is obviously the gut-wrenching opening of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan , but Avery amps up the story with the sensibilities of a modern video game.
There isn’t much time to explore every character as thoroughly as, say, Saving Private Ryan , The Thin Red Line , or Platoon , but we get just enough from everyone for their characters to be actual characters, not cartoons.
From Jed Kurzel’s thundering score to the SS goon who takes the time to spit on a small boy’s baseball, Overlord bombasts its way through its mondo sub-genre, with a sign that reads “Moreau”, an imposing keep that recalls, well, Michael Mann’s The Keep , and several direct lifts from Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
But it’s fun in its own lowbrow way, and makes a nice complement to an undeservedly forgotten lark from 1983—Michael Mann’s goofy “The Keep,” in which Nazi troops in Romania had to contend with an evil force haunting their mountain fortress.
Magaro and Ollivier are also quite good in their limited stints, but Russell, filling a role akin to his father Kurt’s badass John Carpenter roles in “The Thing” and “Escape from New York,” doesn’t quite seal the deal.
Russell is absolutely channeling his father Kurt in “Escape From New York,” and it’s another fun, pulpy performance from the actor.
Boyce, naive war photographer Chase (Iain De Caestecker of Agents of SHIELD ), snarky sniper Tibbet (John Magaro), and explosions expert Ford (Wyatt Russell, a dead ringer for his father Kurt circa Escape from New York ).
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It might also sweeten the pot that Avery’s horror war hybrid feels like a spiritual prequel to “Re-Animator.”
If you can imagine the pulpy WWII revisionism of Inglourious Basterds cross-pollinated with the giddy grindhouse splatter of 1985’s Re-Animator , then you’re more than halfway to the insane B-movie mayhem of Overlord .
But that didn’t stop the makers of Overlord —including hotshot producer J.J. Abrams—from trying their darnedest to find some whacked-out middle ground between Re-Animator and Saving Private Ryan .
Written by Billy Way and Mark L. Smith, with solid cinematography by Laurie Rose and Fabian Wagner, “Overlord” is a kooky riff on the “Re-Animator” formula.
Produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Julius Avery, Overlord -- which feels something like Inglourious Basterds crossed with Re-Animator -- goes along for the first hour as if it were an ordinary WWII movie, albeit one that's rather noisy and with quite a lot of shaky-cam footage.
Then, not unlike From Dusk Till Dawn -- which suddenly morphed from one kind of movie into another -- Overlord goes completely bonkers.
Some fantastic films have pulled off this trick, like John Carpenter’s The Thing (sci-fi and horror), Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk till Dawn (crime and horror) and Pan’s Labyrinth (fantasy and war) to name but three.
The genre switch-up isn’t as sudden as, say, From Dusk Till Dawn , while Asbæk’s sneering baddie pales in comparison to Inglourious Basterds ’ Hans Landa or Pan’s Labyrinth ’s Captain Vidal.
This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if the movie took a From Dusk till Dawn -style turn once the horror elements come into play, but the film’s tone doesn’t shift much after this reveal.
(The Fuller comparisons are particularly strong in a minefield sequence reminiscent of Fixed Bayonets!
The film just can't seem to decide whether it wants to embrace the schlockiness inherent its concept and turn into a period version of Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers , or play it super straight, adding the horror of the monsters on top of the already horrific realities of war.
Like From Dusk Til Dawn or Dog Soldiers , Overlord continues to play it coy about its horror movie foundation in its first half.
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Julius Avery directs this high-energy, low-imagination genre mashup, a combination of Inglourious Basterds and Planet Terror that is not nearly as fun as that description might imply.
Where the Second World War is concerned, that’s evident in movies made as the conflict raged, such as neorealist drama Rome, Open City; in accounts filmed shortly after the battle came to an end, like The Bridge on the River Kwai; and in everything from Schindler’s List to Inglourious Basterds to Dunkirk since.
If you can imagine the pulpy WWII revisionism of Inglourious Basterds cross-pollinated with the giddy grindhouse splatter of 1985’s Re-Animator , then you’re more than halfway to the insane B-movie mayhem of Overlord .
“Overlord” works best as a patriotism booster shot — it’s “Inglourious Basterds” without a swizzle of irony.
Those flourishes bring the film (written by Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith) into the sci-fi and alternate history realms, although no one will confuse this consciously popcorn-y exercise with "Inglourious Basterds" or "The Man in the High Castle."
The end result is a highly entertaining mashup of Inglourious Basterds and 28 Days Later .
Jean Yarbrough’s zany King of the Zombies mashed the two genres together (albeit without ever explicitly using the term “Nazis”) back in 1941.
Dos piezas maestras del clima antinazi en pleno conflicto bélico, King of the Zombies (Jean Yarbrough, 1941) y, sobre todo, Revenge of the Zombies (Steve Sekely, 1943), imaginaron la amenaza de las huestes de Hitler en forma de doctores locos, invasiones de muertos vivientes y criaturas monstruosas.