Overlord (2018)

Just from the premise, I had high expectations from Overlord, perhaps too high. It is exactly my kind of horror sub-genre; monster/zombie horror with a touch of realism. Now that I’ve seen the film, I can say that technically it looks and sounds great, it has the type of action and scares that I expected to see and the performances were, for the most part, adequate. Problem is, that word kept coming back whenever I thought of the film post-viewing… adequate.

Director Julius Avery (Son of a Gun, 2014) does a good enough job with what he has to work with. The film has no big stars in it and the script by Billy Ray (The Hunger Games, Captain Phillips) and Mark L. Smith (Vacancy, The Revenant) is… well… a little weak. The premise is fantastic and it’s exactly the type of film I like, but I can’t help but notice that the plot is simply led by where the writers needed it to go and not where the characters they wrote may have taken it. It suffers, in places, from what many horror films suffer from and that is that characters make decisions that no human being with half a brain (where the other half was not eaten by zombies or other such monsters, that is) would make. These are the kinds of actions that would make viewers, such as myself, throw popcorn at the screen… and rightly so.

The performances are good, but again, the characters are mainly one cliché after another and seemed to just be ripped-off from other films. For example, the character of Tibbet, slightly overacted by John Magaro, seemed like a cross between Charles Bronson’s character, O’Reilly, from The Magnificent Seven and Vin Diesel’s Caparzo from Saving Private Ryan. In fact, there is a scene towards the end of the film that was a direct steal from The Magnificent Seven. Let’s just say that after that part of the movie, I had a little less popcorn left to enjoy.

Jovan Adepo (Fences) does an adequate (there it is again) job playing our main guy, Boyce. A lot of the time, though, he just seems to be surprised and overwhelmed by what is happening around him, almost to the point where it was getting annoying, then he pulled it together somewhat before the end of the film. Wyatt Russell (Cold in July, At the Devil’s Door, 22 Jump Street, Everybody Wants Some!!) as Ford seems to have some acting chops and charisma, much like his father (Kurt) and is one of the bright spots of this film. Mathilde Ollivier (The Misfortunes of Francois Jane) as Chloe is a pleasant surprise in this and also does her best with the material she’s given. Pilou Asbaek (Lucy, Silent Heart, Ghost in the Shell, TV’s Borgen, Game of Thrones) as Wafner, while having great presence, seems to also fall into the cliché in which his role was written, as the evil Nazi officer/Villain. Rounding out the cast are Iain De Caestecker (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones) and Dominic Applewhite (The King’s Speech). My favourite performance, however, was a cameo by Bokeem Woodbine (The Rock, The Big Hit, Ray, Total Recall 2012), who in an early scene reminds us that he still has a lot to give as an actor and should be awarded more roles.

So, while providing sufficient entertainment, I could not help but feel let down by what Overlord delivered. However, I cannot completely ignore the fact the film was technically well made, shot and acted and provided enough entertainment to feel as though it was shorter than it’s 110 minute runtime.

Adequately entertaining. 6.5/10.