I had heard of Overlord around the time the trailers released, but I don't think I ever did see them myself. I saw a teaser, at the very least, and sat back and waited for the film to release without really looking into it much more. I do this a lot with films now, as I feel it's better to limit your overall knowledge of the film and what to generally expect.
Usually, it pays off. I am often quite pleasantly surprised, and glad that I hadn't done a lot of research into a film, but in the case of Overlord, it is one that I can finally say I wish I had either fully missed or aimed more attention at prior to release.
Overlord isn't exactly a bad film, there's plenty right with it, but its take on an over-saturated genre with a unique time period for that genre is never fully taken advantage of. It remains lacking, and as you begin to see the film is reaching its climax you can only feel disappointed at the lack of overall substance within the film. It comes, it begins to shine a little light, and it fades away again.
The film starts off strong, introducing us to a small group of paratroopers flown into enemy territory, just before D-Day. Their goal is to infiltrate a fortified church and destroy a radio transmitter. Everything leading up to this event is done quite well, it grips you in, holds you, shows you the terrifying action you'd expect in a war film, but it lets you go once the characters reach their destination. It slows down drastically and begins to attempt to tell a story from seemingly nowhere, and its fault is that it does this before properly introducing characters and giving the viewer a reason to even care.
Many have made the connection between Overlord and the famous Wolfenstein videogame series, and that's one I can agree with. The film almost doesn't feel like a film, but one riddled with videogame elements and storytelling that don't fit a big screen. We discover that the Nazi's are attempting to create super soldiers as a result of dark experiments, but such experiments result in zombie-like creatures with considerable strength; now, that can sound interesting, but it isn't really taken anywhere, and the specifics aren't laid out for you to understand clearly enough.
Unfortunately, once the film really gets going, half of it has already passed, and seemingly once it gains its footing, it's over. The film reeks of what I'll call 'Cloverfield Mentality' where the first film explains nothing but sets up events for future films featuring different characters and locations, but ultimately further explores the universe. Will that be the case? Probably not.
Overlord aims to create a super soldier, but ultimately creates a slow, weak zombie in an over-saturated genre.
