{"id":4135,"date":"2018-09-23T17:09:04","date_gmt":"2018-09-23T17:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commarts.pleather.us\/2018\/09\/23\/overlord-review-j-j-abrams-nazi-monster-movie-is-intense-ravishing-and-surprisingly-deep-fantastic-fest\/"},"modified":"2018-09-23T17:09:04","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T17:09:04","slug":"overlord-review-j-j-abrams-nazi-monster-movie-is-intense-ravishing-and-surprisingly-deep-fantastic-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/2018\/09\/23\/overlord-review-j-j-abrams-nazi-monster-movie-is-intense-ravishing-and-surprisingly-deep-fantastic-fest\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Overlord\u2019 Review: J.J. Abrams\u2019 Nazi Monster Movie Is Intense, Ravishing, and Surprisingly Deep \u2014 Fantastic Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cOverlord<\/a>\u201d invites low expectations and gleefully rises above them. Yes, this is a B-movie produced with studio resources about American soldiers battling Nazi zombies in WWII. But despite some underdeveloped characters and obvious B-movie tropes, \u201cOverlord\u201d goes beyond the call of duty with a riveting story that digs far deeper than this material usually goes for.<\/p>\n

In the J.J. Abrams-produced genre hybrid, director Julius Avery takes the real-world horrors of Josef Mengele\u2019s WWII Holocaust experiments to a more terrifying extreme: the Nazis have developed a special serum to reanimate their dead. Either by picking up deceased troopers off the side of the road, or simply kidnapping and murdering the locals, the S.S. has weaponized the villagers of an occupied town. This queasy premise sets the stage for a special kind of payoff, as a black man flips the script on these sadistic sociopaths\u2019 final solution with a much better one.<\/p>\n

Avery\u2019s movie is a strange genre brew, merging the framework of a war movie with horror and intense action. The result plays like a mashup of \u201cDead Snow\u201d (a comparatively straightforward zombie-Nazi movie), \u201cUniversal Soldier,\u201d and the video game series \u201cWolfenstein.\u201d It\u2019s an exhilarating ride through the tumultuous life of a WWII soldier, amplified by its boisterous sound design, and grounded by intimate, personal performances by Jovan Adepo and Wyatt Russell. The movie\u2019s gorgeous imagery show the considerable talents of the movie’s\u00a0two<\/em>\u00a0credited cinematographers, Laurie Rose (Ben Wheatley\u2019s \u201cKill List\u201d and \u201cFree Fire\u201d) and Fabian Wagner (\u201cGame of Thrones\u201d), who capture the scope of a mission into enemy territory with a realistic edge and no shortage of visual effects. The result merges the harshness visceral qualities of wartime with the scope of the battlefield.<\/p>\n

Dropped behind enemy lines mere hours before the allied forces storm the beaches of Normandy, Boyce (Adepo) and his Corporal (Russell) have one mission in mind: destroy the German transmitter atop a fortified church in France so American planes can supply air support to the invasion. Nazi scum have been rapidly spreading their control over Europe like a sickness, conquering one nation at a time, with world domination in sight. On June 6, 1944, Hitler\u2019s treacherous trek across the globe is about to be terminated \u2013 at least, that was the plan, until the soldiers see what\u2019s lurking underneath this holy sanctuary.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

One of the most striking moments arrives after Boyce\u2019s plane is shot down and he parachutes into the ocean. Bound by loose cords and trapped at the bottom of the sea, the terrified combatant cuts himself free and floats to the surface, only to wind up entombed within a blanket of nylon, gasping for air. Watching his face emerge under a coat of suffocating white fabric is akin to a baby bursting from the womb as he slits a hole in the surface and takes his first breath. \u201cOverlord\u201d excels at generating this sort of visual tension even as it careens further into its ludicrous plot.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, on the level of character, there’s not much here that we haven’t seen before. Boyce falls into the familiar archetype of a morally sound newcomer to this harsh, war-torn environment; the corporal is the jaded veteran unafraid to get his hands dirty, but commits questionable acts in the name of military orders. They\u2019re not the most developed action heroes, but \u201cOverlord\u201d at least gives them a more developed context. (As a black soldier in WWII, Boyce’s unique placement in this genre is left refreshingly unacknowledged; the movie’s taking enough liberties already, so the historical fiction that ignores America’s history of segregated troops isn’t much of an issue.)<\/p>\n

The story juggles a surprising degree of sophistication with playful scares and tense ultra-violence. Screenwriters Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith push for deeper questions throughout. Chief among them: What separates the Allied forces from their enemies when the only way to beat the Nazis is to sink to their level? When the Corporal tortures a captured S.S. soldier Willis for information, nearly beating the man to death, Boyce stands by and begs his superior officer to stop. The violence is disturbing to the point that it flips the moral compass in play to provocative effect.<\/p>\n

A subliminal commentary on the science of human behavior through a supernatural lens, “Overlord” manages to satisfy expectations of pure escapism even as it digs deeper, and it’s a welcome alternative to so many movies that don’t even try.<\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/h3>\n

“Overlord” premiered at the 2108 edition of Fantastic Fest<\/a>. Paramount releases it November 9, 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source: IndieWire film<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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