When Lost-Mastermind and creator J.J. Abraham announced after The Cloverfield Paradox his next own produced movie , there were rumors that Operation: Overlord would become a part of the Cloverfield universe. A film that will be set in World War II and has to do with scientific experiments. And so my suspense was also great to watch another film that shows more secrets about the Cloverfield Universe and the events in it. But that wasn't the case. Operation: Overlord is a standalone movie that has it all. A movie with a lot of action and some shocking pictures that burn into your mind.
It is the year 1944 and we are in the middle of an operation called Overlord of the Allied Forces, which has to land in France and destroy a radio tower. The fleet of planes, which is to bring the soldiers there, is heavily bombed by the Nazis over France and one of the planes is shot down and crashes in the forest. A few soldiers survive and come across the helpful French Chloe in the forest, who takes the soldiers to the village where the radio tower is stationed. The village is occupied by the Nazis. When the soldier Boyce is supposed to explore the radio tower, he stumbles across secret research laboratories in the cellars of the building, where terrible experiments are carried out on the inhabitants of the village.
Everyone knows these trash movies in which Nazi zombies appear or in which human experiments are carried out in wars. These movies are often so unduly ridiculous and a viewer turns the film off after 5 - 10 minutes because it is a waste of time. But with Operation: Overlord it's different. Producer J.J. Abrahams and director Julius Avery were able to create a film that in its first hour concentrates only on the war and its atrocities, in which only small clues are scattered to the later half of the film.
The movie is easy knitted and follows a very straight and simple storyline. The first half builds on the second half very skilfully, in which the horror of the town and the experiments are uncovered after and after and despite the missing depth of the characters one fibers with them. The makers know how to use the tension well. Right at the beginning of the film, when the fleet is bombarded with the scenes in the plane, later in the village or even later in the cellar of the radio tower, when the experiments become a nightmare and at the end the film becomes a firework of explosions, all this gives the movie its charm and it stays in your memory. The movie isn't a masterpiece of its genre, despite shocking pictures it doesn't offer any real horror, but all the more action and suspense.
I have rated the film with 6 stars at IMDb, if I could I would rate it with 6.6 or 6.7 there, but for 7 stars the movie should have offered a little more.
A movie that is really well done and right good for a movie evening with popcorn and also makes a lot of fun!
