Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Stuart Cooper's Overlord is a meditation on the mechanics of war and the young souls swept into it. After winning the Silver Bear at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival, the film became incredibly obscure until recently, when it was given the restoration it deserved by the lovely folks at Criterion. Beginning in a quaint English home and ending on the beaches of Normandy for 'Operation Overlord' during World War II, it's a simple yet hypnotic story of a young private named Tom (Brian Stirner) and his slow journey to a death he feels is inevitable. The very first scene shows an out-of- focus soldier running from or towards an unknown threat before being shot down, only to be revealed as a dream sequence. This vision plagues Tom's thoughts, but he nevertheless remains somewhat chipper about it.What makes this very personal journey so incredibly powerful is the sense of impending doom. Tom always seems to be on the move, be it on a train or an army jeep, as if he is making a slow trek towards his fate, and he chooses this time to daydream. Despite not knowing where the war is heading or if he'll even see combat, he somehow knows he is going to die but remains nonchalant about it. A nice boy, well spoken and slight, Tom is not built for the army, but he does what he is told and makes friends. The only time we really see his personality come to the fore is when he meets a pretty young lady (Julie Neesam) and the pair enjoy what little time they have together. He tells her they'll meet again, but we know they won't. In making Tom such an everyman, Overlord studies the anonymity of battle, and celebrates the millions of unknown soldiers who have charged into certain death without really understanding why.Starting out life as a documentary, Cooper later made the bold decision to use the startling archive footage provided by the Imperial War Museum and weave a narrative through it. Cinematographer John Alcott (who collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barry Lyndon) employs grainy black-and-white photography for the central story so it is interchangeable with the stock footage. The result is staggering. By adding sound, scenes of devastating city bombings become hellish nightmares, and a beach landing turns into something out of science- fiction. In a bizarre scene, a water wheel device powered by mini rockets rolls across the water and onto land, hoping to detonate any landmines or unexploded bombs before mightily toppling over. It's World War II like you've never seen it before, and it's real. It's a winning combination of observational and personal, making Overlord one of the most innovative and devastating humanist war films ever made.

There were millions of unknown soldiers in WW2 … some heroic … some cowardly … and some downright stupid. Their stories are compelling … plucked from youth and loved ones … sent to faraway places … dealt an unremarkable death … insignificant in the maelstrom. This is the premise of Overlord. It is a good premise for a film, but that alone cannot save this film from the ash heap.Overlord has a huge problem … the simplicity of its plot. The film is about 83 minutes long … of which about half is stock war footage. Seriously, it seemed like they started with the stock and wrote a story around it … which led to a very simple plot. Character development is woefully missing in this film. Furthermore there are parts of the film that do nothing to drive the plot forward and leave you wondering what the heck is this about (note the scene with the French money … talk about a waste of 5 minutes).Overlord is a surreal, meandering, simplistic and often times pointless look at the preparation for the D Day invasion. It specifically focuses on one individual soldier's experience and his sense of futility and doom. It is maudlin … has very little historical context … and uses way too much stock. Finally, it suffers from a downright stupid ending.In honor of those who fought I begrudgingly give this film a 5 but it deserves a 3!

His name is Tom.. He could have been anyone. My father's story closely followed the general storyline of Tom, called up into the Army and who's first experience of conflict was the D-day landings on sword beach. While he told of his experiences. Much of the soldierly life was missing. This is where the film scores as it shows Tom's slow inexorable progress from civy street to training and preparation, mental as well as physical, for WAR, not in a wild action movie style but from the perspective of a quiet ordinary lad called up and sent to fight. Thankfully it does not ponder the rights and wrongs of war, after all, that was not a luxury a lad like Tom could afford. This is where the stock footage plays a major part in the movie as it presents a back drop to what Tom is being asked to face. Tom is a scared teenager who has a real sense that this day could very well be his last.

"Overlord" is one of the most disembodied and surreal war movies ever created. It's the story of a soldier, Tom, who joins the British Army, trains, then gets sent to the D-Day Invasion (Operation Overlord) and is promptly shot.What makes the movie remarkable, however, is that it uses stock footage of the war interspersed with original footage, strange and original sound-mixing, and discontinuous editing to trace the soldier's progress of mental states to that moment of clarity right before he dies. Past, present, and future are all collapsed into one moment, and an image that provokes a response earlier has a key relationship with an image that comes later. Death, sexuality, and despair are clumped together as well, creating one of the most artful and poetic works ever made on war--which is important, considering that pseudo-poetic "antiwar" movies are made all the time that often break down into over-indulgent action films. No, this movie shares a lot more with Dziga Vertov's "The Man with a Movie Camera" than "The Sands of Iwo Jima".--PolarisDiB