Overlord

Year: 2018
Director: Julius Avery
Cast: Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Pilou Asbaek, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Iain De Caestecker


Plot: During WW2, a group of Allied soldiers on a mission behind enemy lines discover a secret lab where Nazis are creating near unkillable zombie soldiers.


Review: The biggest name attached to Overlord is producer JJ Abrams, as most of the cast are made up of relatively unknown actors. Thankfully the cast all deliver great work, though the lack of a bonafide star does hurt the film a bit.

In Overlord, a group of Allied soldiers are dropped via parachute in France to destroy a German communications tower situated at a village. After taking refuge at a young girl's home, they encounter the Nazis, and subsequently discover that the enemy has been experimenting on the villagers and their own soldiers to create zombies, and unlike the kind we've seen in other horror fare, these undead humans don't go down easy.

Director Julius Avery manages to deliver a competent film with plenty of action sequences, from the thrilling opening sequence to the final assault on the Nazi occupied church at the film's end. The second act though is rather slow, though I wouldn't blame it on Avery. The script by Billy Ray and Mark L Smith is mostly responsible for that, as well as the mostly humorless dialogue. In fact, the film is guilty for taking itself much too seriously as the idea of zombie Nazis is pretty crazy, and the filmmakers should have tried to exploit that more.

Of the cast, Jovan Adepo and Mathilde Ollivier impress the most as Boyce, the rookie soldier who has to man up to survive, and Chloe, the French girl who assists the Allied soldiers on their mission. Adepo reminds me a lot of John Boyega and is just as talented. Ollivier on the other hand is like a less cynical version of Melanie Laurent from Inglourious Basterds, but it works just fine. Pilou Asbaek scores as the evil Nazi general in charge of the base while Wyatt Russell is also solid as Ford, the commanding officer of the group.

Overall, I found Overlord to be a mostly fun zombie horror flick, complete with violence, gore and bullets to match. But it just needs to embrace its craziness a bit more to be thoroughly enjoyable. (7/10)