Sword's Edge

RPGs, Movies, Comics, y'know: nerd stuff!

Overlord, A Review

This first appeared at my Patreon on 29 July, 2019

I’ve finally seen a bunch of films I likely would not otherwise have seen, and I of course have opinions of all of them. I want to start with Overlord, which had an intriguing premise for anyone who used to love Castle Wolfenstein or Return to CW.

If you know nothing more about Overlord, just know going in that it’s not a straight ahead war movie, and the reference to CW should clue you in as to how things are going to unravel/roll out. It’s a fine movie for Castle Wolfenstein-esque adventures, but if you aren’t interested in that particular and kind of specific genre, I can only offer a very lukewarm recommend.

The movie falls down on its characters. This is a plot-driven movie and the characters are stock standards rather than thoughtful explorations. An odd facet is the ignoring of the blatant racism and segregation of the period. To me, this may be much closer to how a pulp RPG campaign might treat the subject, and I found it odd at first but not off-putting. However, I am not a person affected by racism, so it’s certainly easier for me to accept that kind of decision, but would be interested to know how it was otherwise accepted.

So if you are looking to see something inspired by Castle Wolfenstein, and if stock characters and the removal of historical racial tensions don’t bother you, you might find Overlord of interest.

You can find out more about Overlord at Wikipedia or IMDB.