Overlord

Audiovisually it’s great, but in terms of script and direction, it’s a shabby grindhouse shoot ‘em up with a story that would work better as a video game – two thirds of relatively realistic war action and cheap psychology, followed by a final level tuned to action-horror where you have to kill the enemies with something a bit thicker than a stick. In a film, this approach is twice a shame: on the one hand, it can’t fulfil the expectations of a brisk and gripping carnage, and on the other, it excels in the impression of a serious war drama that takes the plot with the undead very seriously, but finishes it with an avalanche of action clichés and a wisecracking self-sacrificing hero. It’s not bad, because within the set standards, the script unfolds in a logical and well thought-out way, but it’s such a shame that the premise remains unfulfilled because they chose motives that are the total opposite (we follow a war mission into which the zombies get somewhat by mistake, and it doesn’t feel like the cruel, realistic horror they probably intended), and it’s too soft, too (it should have been much stronger visually). The excellent opening twenty minutes and the interesting alternative to the war genre with lots of minor ideas are worth the attention, but don’t expect a great B-movie with an intentionally silly bloodfest. For many people that might be good, but not for me. (02/04/2019)

It sounded more promising on paper. Overlord is a well made action horror film with undead, Nazis and undead Nazis. It's just that they didn't have a lot of money to spend on it, so it takes a long time to get going, and in the end Julius Avery and J.J. Abrams don't show enough to make it a real hit. But thanks to the good cast, the proper cinematic violence, and solid pacing towards the end, it's ultimately pretty good, though I guess more was expected. (06/18/2019)

Overlord is technically a perfect piece of crap chock-full of little details to satisfy geeky taste buds. How could such a farce have the most luxuriously intense final fight, milking its potential to the last drop, which will satisfy even the most hard-core fan of the genre? Overlord recalls everything from Sky Captain to Dead Snow to Planet Terror. It’s like a more expensive, more refined, almost top-tier grindhouse flick, but (unfortunately) unlike typical representatives of this sub-genre, it takes itself seriously, plays at big heroes and maintains political correctness. This creates a conflicting mix of impressions and could deserve a rating of anywhere from one to five stars, depending on what you expect from this movie and your current mood. [Sitges FF] (10/12/2018)

An over-the-top war battle between five American paratroopers and Nazis brewing experimental medicine in France to transform dead bodies into mutated super-soldiers. This is a total victory of polished production values in an otherwise entirely below-average story full of one-dimensional characters and stupid American clichés. The film is a lot like Frankenstein's Army, with an extremely generous budget and ostentatiously exhibition-like action scenes, relying heavily on horror stylized elements and explicit brutality. When you have a leaky and stupid screenplay, first-rate assertiveness and a large budget seldom tend to save it. The visual gloss can work as a band-aid, but in this case it peels off quickly if you don’t buy into the very impressive parachute introduction and realize that the rest the film takes place in two locations, that you can count the zombies on one hand, and that even the best tricks and masks don’t cover up the barren dialogues, lack of exaggeration, lack of imagination, a predictable ordinary plot, and the fact that a six-year-old boy with ball in hand constantly gets in the way of the heroes, probably to make it even more American. (10/12/2018)

Overlord is a kind of silly B film which is dead serious about itself, painfully heavy, and deprived of one-liners, juice and memorable scenes alike. There was just one creative and funny trash scene (the grenade in the mouth) that I was able to enjoy. The rest is just awfully austere and has a superficial pathos that only a lazy screenwriter could produce. In the best parts, the plot doesn’t offer more than dull escapes when faced with a Deadpool-looking creature with no costume. The characters are so deplorably designed. Just to name a few, they could be described as the warm-hearted black man, the badass cowboy, the nasty Italian, the clever kid, the emancipated French lady and a generic SS villain with a horde of brainless Nazis – all being flat, uninteresting and predictable. And the actors’ performances do nothing to help or enhance them. To add insult to injury, the film is unnecessarily noisy, including the characters who shout at each other all the time, even when there’s no reason. All flows in a linear predictable way, without any twist or surprise. As for those couple of scenes with too many effects, they’re definitely not compensating for the dull scenario (and I don’t agree with those who say the initial airdrop is well shot). [Sitges 2018] (10/11/2018)