Film Review - Overlord (18)

A thousand year Reich needs thousand year soldiers.

Now that cinema screens are filling up with family-friendly holiday titles, what do we need to stop it all getting too sickly? That's right - American GIs fighting genetically altered Nazi-mutant super-soldiers. Call it a seasonal palate cleanser. Overlord is as much fun as I just made that sound (i.e. lots), but with rather more brains and heart than you might expect, not all of them gratuitously splattered across hard surfaces.

It's 5th June 1944, the eve of the D-Day landings, and one task-force of soldiers has a specific mission - to parachute into rural France and destroy a radio tower, thus disrupting Nazi communications and helping out the main invasion force. Things go wrong from the early stages, only a ragged band of survivors making it to the mission site - and that's before a whole other sinister truth is uncovered. Nazi scientists have been carrying out some deeply unpleasant experiments on the local populace, with a terrifying, game-changing goal in mind. The GIs' mission is now doubly deadly, as well as doubly essential. 

If this all sounds the stuff of 1980s B-movie exploitation, well yes - of course it is. But it's got quite a lot else going for it too. Produced by J. J. Abrams Overlord a is handsome-looking movie, right from the impressive (and terrifying) aerial sequence with which it opens. Behind the story are two proven screenwriters, adding some dramatic weight and ingenuity to the unashamedly schlocky subject-matter. Rather than being a combat movie ham-fistedly reshaped as a horror halfway through, it manages to embrace both genres at once, the weirder elements acting as an extension of the main Second World War tale. Both aspects of the film are gutsy, in figurative and literal ways.

There are characters you end up rooting for too, as opposed to the disposable type in traditional B-movies. None are drawn in Shakespearian depth, but they're adequately sketched - the combat-hardened corporal who takes charge, the wise-cracking cynic, the small-town guy who barely survived boot camp - so you'll care whether or not they make it through their gory ordeal. Grounding it all is Private Ed Boyce, a gentle but heroic everyman, who provides the story's through-line and its conscience. It's a fine performance by Brit actor Jovan Adepo (Denzel Washington's son in last year's Fences), as nuanced as the lunatic plot will allow. 

Overlord is a grim and glorious fusion of The Dirty Dozen with David Cronenberg-style body horror. It's rammed with thrilling battle sequences, twisted science and evil Nazis just begging for a comeuppance (37 years on from Raiders of the Lost Ark they're still the most hissable movie villains on the big screen). Director Julius Avery knows the kind of property he's working with here and he makes the most of it in a pacy, certificate-18 adventure, his personal high-point being the initial aircraft catastrophe and its flailing aftermath. Under his guidance pulp fiction has seldom been more squelchy - or more balls-to-the-wall entertaining. 

If your attitude to the approach of Christmas is Grinch-like, well - here's your perfect antidote. Keep your rifle close and give those Nazis hell.

Gut Reaction: Increased body tension, several jumps, a few laughs, a number of horror-induced cringes, a building sense of exhilaration and a whispered expression of the sentiment 'This is great!'.

Where Are the Women?: There's only one female character in this boys' own horror/adventure-fest, Resistance fighter Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier). Happily she's front and centre, and progressively more badass as the story progresses. So that's good.

Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. Replete with full-blooded irony-free performances and gory practical effects, this is rollicking wartime adventure for the non-squeamish. Loved it.