Overlord - Fun little film

I don't know why, but I can't think of that much to say about 'Overlord,' other than I really enjoyed it.  So... what's it about?  It's obviously a war film.  So picture Allied troops storming into German territory during World War II.  But it's also a horror film.  And a zombie movie.  Sort of.  I guess the only thing I know it's not, is part of the much speculated 'Cloverfield' anthology series, as there was a rumour going around that it was.

During the D-day landings into France, a team of American paratroopers drops in behind enemy lines to take down a communications tower in order to aid Allied air forces during the invasion.  However, they get more than they bargained for when they discover that there's more going on than they first thought beneath the target location - namely some pretty nasty experiments conducted by those dastardly Nazis.

Jovan Adepo is the lead soldier - one of the many who signed up to fight the good fight, but without really that much of a notion of the true horrors that awaits him on the battlefield (and that's just the human foes!).  And he's pretty good.  Despite playing a soldier, he's not automatically a 'badass' who's only too happy to waste every bad-guy he comes across.  He's actually more of a pacifist who quickly finds he's pretty out of his depth among the carnage and has to adapt quickly if he's going to survive.  He's aided (and sort of 'mentored') by more experienced soldier played by Wyatt Russell (son of on-screen action hero Kurt - seriously, once you know he's his son, you'll never be able to UN-see his father in him!).  He's more of the tough-guy gritty action hero we're used to and it's nice to see the opposite dynamics between the two.  Personally, I could have enjoyed the film with just those two being the centre of it all.  However, the film-makers had to throw in a - sort of - 'love interest' in there in the form of Mathilde Ollivier.  She plays her part well, but I can't help but think the film would have been equally as good without her, plus - for whatever reason - she reminded me of someone out of 'Inglorious Bastards.'

During the beginning of the film, there's quite a bit of computer generated effects (namely getting from plane to ground) and, in my opinion, it doesn't look that good.  I was wondering what I was in for, but - luckily - the film-makers quickly start to use more 'practical' effects as the story progresses and it does do a damn sight better job at creating an atmosphere you can believe in (although the 'blood splatters' still did look a little too exaggerated!).

I guess if you like horror you should enjoy this film as there's plenty here you should enjoy.  It does a good job of focusing on the characters, rather than just having numerous jump scares - one after the other.  Although there are zombies in this film (and they've been heavily 'talked up' in promotional material, don't expect something like 'The Walking Dead' - there's plenty more 'evils' our Allied protagonists have to deal with before they get to the zombies.  If there's still anyone out there who enjoys war movies as much as me, it'll certainly make a good film even better.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that