Film criticism: Operation: Overlord
Films that are going on in World War II are all over the place. Most of them, however, more or less accurately roll up the historical events of the war. They rarely deal with secret Nazi laboratories in which superhuman super zombies are bred. And if you do, then you’re pretty sure you’re deep in the B to C movie range. But producer J.J. Abrams brings us a representative of this genre into the mainstream cinema and wants to make big money with it and so this recipe doesn’t seem to be wrong at all.
CONTENTS
On the eve of D-Day, young Boyce and his equally inexperienced comrades, after jumping out of an airplane over French Normandy, are to complete a delicate and very important assignment. In a small village the Germans have built a base in which a radio jammer is located. Under the command of the battle-tested Corporal Ford, the troops are to take this transmitter out of action by 6 a.m. at the latest in order to provide air support for the landing troops.
However, everything goes wrong at the target approach. Their plane is hit and so only a handful of men, around Boyce and Ford, manage to reach the ground alive at all. When they finally arrive in the village, they also quickly realize that not everything is right here. And before they know it, the jammer is their smallest problem ever.
© 2018 Paramount Pictures
CRITICS
Although never really arrived in mainstream cinema, the stories about secret and gruesome research by the Nazis, which end in more horror than war movies, are certainly not new. In these realms the whole thing feels quite fresh, though, and stands out from the usual superhero or science fiction spectacle in a refreshing way. Also the quite brutal, and thus only from 16 released representation, emphasizes Operation: Overlord out of the somewhat bloodless unit mush of these days. What he still hasn’t become is a horror movie. More suitable would be a supernatural action film with horror elements.
A giant ace in the hole with all this, of course, is for a movie of this kind, royal budget. This allows for the usual cheap makeup effects and a lot of fake blood, but also some quite good war impressions, credible backdrops and a competent cast. And in contrast to MEG, which was released in the summer and was also intended to attract B-Movie fans to the cinema, something has also been done here with these advantages.
© 2018 Paramount Pictures
In contrast to the above-mentioned film, we are not dealing here with a cynical attempt to make as much profit as possible from as little effort as possible. The focus here was clearly on fun. At no time does Operation: Overlord claim to be a high quality film. He just wants to entertain with his ludicrous plot and a consistently high pacing, even though the logic is lost quite quickly. But that’s forgiven in a story about invincible Nazi zombies.
If you had made a bit more effort not to let all characters look like templates and made all story twists too predictable, you might even be able to talk about a really good movie instead of an entertaining “Guilty Pleasures”. And even if the film has hardly any lengths, 5-10 minutes less would have done it quite good, because especially the last third is almost a bit too much of a good thing. Even the best showdown begins to draw at some point.
© 2018 Paramount Pictures
Familiar faces can hardly be seen in Operation: Overlord, but that doesn’t stop it, because the whole cast does its thing really well and obviously has fun doing it. The fact that the characters he depicts, as mentioned above, seem a bit one-dimensional is more due to the script than to the acting performances.
Effect, stunt and makeup work corresponds to the budget and therefore stands out far from what is otherwise offered in the genre. Also concerning camera, editing and of course directing, the work is done competently throughout. No real blunders, but nothing outstanding. The somewhat exaggeratedly heroic and otherwise rather generic soundtrack doesn’t necessarily carry any negative weight, but it can’t lure anyone out behind the shore either.
© 2018 Paramount Pictures
FAZIT
If you want to be entertained for about 2 hours without having to strain your head, but also without insulting your intelligence, you can’t do too much wrong with Operation: Overlord. The movie serves a bit too many clichés for my taste and is more than just predictable, yet the bloody action hunt is still fun to watch. Whether you have to go to the cinema is up to you, but a future success for a home release seems preprogrammed, because just for a funny round at the movie night, the film is made like made.
