mike | 29 Jul 2011 | 458 Views | 5 Likes | 0 Dislikes

Review: Attack the Block

It's the Friday afternoon before a long weekend, and I'm going to put my head down, push through this review and then obliterate the thought of movies - of good ones, of bad ones - from my mind, and literally go fishin'. I saw a hell of a flick this morning, that being Joe Cornish's Attack the Block, and if I spend too much more time comparing it in it's fresh, joyous and nasty splendour to the other folks-battle-aliens movie that came out today, the dour, moribund plastic-food-designed-by-committee Cowboys and Aliens and thinking about which one is going to make more money and be seen by more people, I am going to enfunkify myself even further into Depression Ditch. And try explaining that bad mood to a pregnant wife. I dare you.

So, onward: on Attack the Block, what it is and why it's the best action movie of the year so far:

The titular "block" is a council estate (affordable public housing, i.e. England's slightly scary/slightly charming version of Cabrini Green) in south London. As five "youths" stick up a terrified nurse during the crashings & bangings of Guw Fawkes' night, a meteor obliterates a nearby car. The youths investigate (mostly hoping to find something worth stealing in the wreck) and discover a gnarly, mean little alien that attacks them. Teenage vengeance is sworn, and they chase the alien into a park and corner it in a shed. Using the delightfully goofy yet utterly convincing teenage logic that runs much of the film, they decide to attack it with firecrackers. Soon they're teaming up with the residents of the block - the nurse they robbed, a pissed-off weed dealer and an oblivious student - to defend it from an onslaught of alien invaders, hurling the quaint weapons of English youth (rockets, a half-machete) and hilariously thick South London slang at a pack of ink-black ape-wolf-motherf**kers with glow-in-the-dark-teeth.

It's hilarious, well acted and with a great script and an absolutely fantastic score. It has a central character in Moses (John Boyega) who beneath a charming rude-boy swagger is the prototypical outlaw-turned-hero (the exact man in black that Cowboys and Aliens tried to prop up, and couldn't). It's stylish and fun without seeming self indulgent - Cornish uses the smoke from the boys' defensively flung firecrackers to set up a couple of legitimately beautiful, suspenseful scenes - and it features the neatest creatures I've seen in a long, long while. To describe them wouldn't do them justice; suffice it to say that a film has finally created a monster that isn't a variation on the "lets put arms in its mouth and give it bug eyes and drippy saliva" model, and it's refreshing.

Ultimately, though, it gave me what I want from a movie like this: moments of joy and a couple of good moments of panic. It's full of life, popping and sparking, full of characters that seem like actual people reacting in (and it's kind of indicative of my mood that I have to mention this) life-like ways to the weird situation they find them selves in. Hallelujah! Grey skies have cleared up! As a palate cleanser for the utter sourness of the pointless, hollow and dusty other aliens movie that came out today, it can't be beat, and it has and will stand straight up to any other action movie that has or will come out this year. 9/10

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