Taking place during World War II on the eve of D-Day an army squad is being flown in with the mission to blow up a communication tower that is installed at a church in a small German occupied French town. Their plane is shot down and what few men are left will have to carry out the mission to severe the German communication to assist the beach landings. It will be up to the small group comprised of actors Wyatt Russell, Jovan Adepo, John Magaro, Ian De Caestecker and Dominic Applewhite to proceed forward under Corporal Ford’s (Wyatt Russell) command. Jovan Adepo plays Private Boyce our tether through this operation as we are with him from his jump to ground landing, being his first mission his is green and has empathy towards those being killed or whom he must kill. Soon after the jumpers find each other they encounter a girl in the woods named Chloe (Mathilde Olivier) who shows the way to the town and hides them in her home, explaining that the Germans constantly raid the homes and take the residents to the church where they don’t come back the same. Private Boyce is infuriated when a German officer who frequents Chloe’s home has come back to take advantage of her to protect her younger brother, Boyce’s feelings get the better of him leading to a change of plans when the officer is taken hostage. This will lead to Boyce having to retrieve two of his buddies who went out to a rendezvous point to see if any other soldiers made it, except things happen and Boyce ends up within the church itself and sees that there is a German doctor carrying out supernatural experiments, for Ford the mission is still blow up the tower and get out while Private Boyce wants to bury what he has seen being done.
This movie started out pretty well for me with the American ships and planes flying into France and the attack on the plane. Once on the ground I was sold on this war story having this small group of men who each one has a very distinctive personality all trying to survive together. Even once in the town the tension grows as Germans lurk around the corners and come knocking on doors. When the movie starts going full blown supernatural it started losing me, with Boyd lurking around the church having been accidentally taken inside and slowly uncovering secrets that was interesting. It was an okay war film with this subtle supernatural/science-fiction plot, then when we get the first super soldier I was like okay they went there why and then it becomes a monsters smash fest. I could have done with everything before that German decides to become a Hulk like monster, just the there’s something mysterious and unsettling about what they are doing that we need to blow this up before and they even acknowledge that Americans would want to know what they were doing and the atrocities that were going on no one needed to carry out the experiments. While it was enjoyable and I think a little higher than the talk I heard from others, I think if it would have kept more of a war feel through to the end with keeping the supernatural a little subtler I would have enjoyed more. This reminds me of another J.J. Abrams produced movie 10 Cloverfield Lane where the ending took away from the rest of the movie, for me I loved everything until she got out of the shelter and the aliens appeared before that it was a well built thriller and then it just went off the rails with the alien. Overlord it’s meh, I am glad I didn’t see it in theaters I think this worked well for my Netflix Blu-Ray rental, I think it deserves a little more recognition than streaming service. C.
