Running Time: 1 hr, 28 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Joe Cornish
Quick Impressions:
My husband and I have been dying to see this movie all summer. Suddenly, it showed up out of nowhere on a small screen of a multiplex near us, just in time for our viewing to coincide with the rioting in London, a delicious juxtapositioning that will require further thought at a later date.
Both my husband and I have been hearing great stuff about this movie from unrelated sources, so we were really excited. Sadly, only three other people were in the theater, possibly because it opened without being announced as new. We had the same experience with the movie Little Children several years ago. I kept checking for it at a theater that showed those types of films, and then it suddenly appeared on a small screen of a multiplex without any fanfare.
I have to say, Attack the Block was pretty great. I liked it right away. When the first alien appeared, I thought to myself, Note to ET: Good thing you landed in California. The movie seems to evoke E.T. deliberately—kids on bikes in distinctive head gear, an alien, and menacing guys in a van. But poor kids in South London tend to be wary of people who aren’t “from the block,” and they greet extra-terrestrial visitors with something a bit more abrasive than Reese’s Pieces.
Moses and his gang respond to the alien without really thinking, relying on the instinct that has enabled them to survive in a tough neighborhood.
In some ways, Attack the Block makes a good companion piece for some of the summer’s American blockbusters. Like Super 8, it’s an homage to earlier Spielberg films such as E.T.,Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Goonies. But where Super 8 takes a nostalgic look back at the innocence of childhood, Attack the Block focuses on children robbed of their innocence (though they maintain a surprising amount). The movie also shares a central concern with Cowboys and Aliens, the idea of redrawing alliances in the face of a greater threat.
Equal parts action, thriller, sci-fi, social commentary, and comedy, Attack the Block succeeds marvelously. It has a serious message that it conveys pretty well, but it’s also loads of fun to watch. It even reminded me vaguely of the movie Do the Right Thing except that it had a happier ending, concluding on a note of inclusion rather than exclusion. (It also had more aliens.)
The Good and The Great:
The aliens in this film were really fantastic, certainly much better than any other cinematic monsters in recent memory. They don’t look particularly expensive to create, and yet they’re terrible to behold (though the dead one does look a bit like E.T. served on a kabob). The moment when the boys first think they see eyes and then realize they aren’t eyes at all is delightfully well done. Those creatures look cool and scary, and the sound they make is beyond chilling. The sound alone is a big part of the reason the movie succeeds as a thriller.
The acting is also excellent, though the cast is almost entirely unknown, at least to me. Nick Frost’s is the only truly recognizable face, although I had seen Jodi Whittaker before in the movie Venus. Much like Super 8, the movie succeeds because of the appeal of the young leads, a convincing and increasingly likeable bunch.
I can’t remember the last time a movie scared me so much. (I don’t mean that it’s deeply disturbing or truly horrifying overall, but one scene in particular really made me jump, and calming down took a while.) (Take that with a grain of salt, though, because I’m not one for most horror movies and never even attempt to watch torture porn, so I’m kind of a lightweight.)
Also, in contrast to most summer comedies, too prone to running out of steam halfway through, the movie actually got increasingly funny as it progressed. Sometimes movies drift from comedy into action. This managed to be funny and exciting at the same time, funnier as it got more exciting.
Although I’ve been to London and love the city, I have never lived there, and I certainly can’t claim to be an expert on dodgy neighborhoods and what goes on there. I’m an expert on neither the dialect nor the social situation of the characters. But I will say that they seemed pretty real to me.
Best Action Sequence:
The action builds in Attack the Block, but I particularly like the scene when the boys escape from the parking garage and head back for the relative safety of the apartment building.
Best Joke:
As the movie goes on, it becomes increasingly funny. Early on, it seems more like an action movie with occasional moments of humor, but by the time the movie hits its stride, you’re laughing as much as you’re jumping. The characters have a wonderful jaded innocence about them, and all of them have some hilarious one-liners. My personal favorite is Jerome’s lament, “This is too much madness to fit into one text,” although the bit about Ron’s weed room is pretty funny, too, as are Brewis’s ongoing attempts to seem cool.
Best Scene:
I think the best moments of the movie occur when people realize that the aliens exist. I particularly like the segment in Sam’s apartment when she reluctantly agrees to treat Pest’s leg wound. Initially, she’s horrified to see the thugs who have just mugged her force their way into her apartment, but by the end of the scene, her attitude has changed (though she’s certainly still on guard.)
Something similar happens when they all decide to go to Tia’s apartment, and again when they all meet up with Brewis and Ron. I find it so interesting that Hi-Hatz sees the aliens kill people repeatedly and still doesn’t seem to believe they’re a threat, pursuing instead a vendetta against Moses. Everyone else in the movie learns to get along together, to band together against the threat to the block. Not Hi-Hatz.
Best Surprise:
Some of the best surprises involve Biggz’s frustrated attempts to escape from the trash bin, including one moment that made me jump and gave me goose bumps and another that finally brought some success to Probs’ and Mayhem’s quest for acceptance.
And of course, we’re in for a surprise of a different kind when Sam and the audience finally get a peek at what’s behind the door of Moses’ apartment.
Best Scene Visually:
As I’ve said before, the aliens look and sound pretty awesome, but one nice visual moment is the scene in the hallway of the building after they set off the smoke bombs. Another is when the aliens climb the outside to the building to open their mouths behind Hi-Hatz as he’s trying to intimidate Moses and his friends. Ron’s weed room is also quite easy on the eyes.
The Performances:
John Boyega is magnificent as Moses. Even though the movie introduces him as an antagonist as the leader of the gang attacking young nurse Sam as she returns home, we have no trouble transferring our sympathies to Moses. Initially, we don’t see all of the charm and strength we later discover within the character, but in Moses’ eyes, we immediately notice fear and courage, characteristics that let us know that he’s something more than a mugger. Moses is more introspective than his colleagues and seems older. It’s not surprising that he’s a leader. As the film progresses, however, Boyega shows us more and more things to love about Moses in his subtle, emotionally driven performance. His statements are succinct, but his eyes speak volumes.
Jodi Whittaker is easy to like as Sam, a young nurse becoming disenchanted with her neighborhood after being mugged. Presumably, most audience members are not members of a teen street gang in South London, so Sam is the character we naturally identify with—until we learn more about the boys and see that Sam has more in common with them than any of us initially realized. Whittaker does a good job of making Sam realistic as her feelings toward Moses and his friends begin to change. She is not won over immediately, and even when she does accept their friendship, she refuses to let them off the hook for their bad behavior. Her facial reaction to seeing Moses’ apartment as she talks to him on the phone is priceless.
Pest was probably my favorite character. Alex Esmail played him with such charm. He seems like a fairly good-natured guy who relies on humor to forge relationships with others, but he’s often funniest when he’s not trying to be.
Leon Jones brought both great intensity and great innocence to Jermone, a character who has some of the funniest lines in the movie.
Franz Drameh was realistically surly as Dennis, a character who should have appeared in more scenes, but this movie seems to want to teach us that refusal to budge from the ways one is set in does not yield positive results.
I loved Simon Howard as Biggz. He spent most of the movie trapped in a trash bin, and yet he was one of my favorite characters, a plucky survivor determined not to die.
Luke Treadaway was also pretty great as Brewis, a character who reminded me vaguely of a lot of guys I went to high school with. Treadaway perfectly conveyed the realistic reactions of a privileged young man who worries that he will be busted for drugs again—by his parents. I loved the way he reacted when he discovered what had happened to his father’s car. I loved his reaction again at the elevator. Treadaway played these moments just right. The character seemed absurdly out of his depth, but he always retained a certain likeable humanity. He wasn’t just a joke.
Nick Frost as drug dealer Ron is the one recognizably famous fast in the cast. Frost is always funny, and he’s funny here. I love his interactions with Brewis, as well as his reactions to the excitement of Moses and his friends and the intensity of Hi-Hatz, played by Jumayn Hunter.
Hi-Hatz is an interesting character. He’s more of a stereo-type than anyone else in the movie, a guy so determined to be a thug and annihilate his enemies that he doesn’t even notice that alien monsters are falling from the sky. He’s a hard guy to figure out, but Hunter does a great job of remaining in character and not noticing his own increasingly ridiculous behavior.
I also loved Sammy Williams and Michael Ajao as Probs and Mayhem, younger kids on the block who finally found a way to make people respect them.
The Negatives:
Some of the “message” of the movie felt a bit heavy handed. Everything stops for a moment to allow Moses to speak lines that make the movie a film about social awareness instead of just a mindless alien hunt. In case you’re not smart enough to extrapolate the moral yourself, the movie beats you over the head with it. And Hi-Hatz as a character is a stero-type that becomes too ridiculous to ignore, but again, that’s deliberate. The filmmakers really want you to get the message.
On the flip side, of course, Attack the Block is a movie that actually has something to say, and by making an exciting popcorn flick about hunting aliens instead of just another documentary, Joe Cornish probably reached a wider audience (even though only three other people were in the theater with us).
I also thought that the explanation of the aliens’ behavior was kind of…not silly exactly (and it kind of reminded me of Pitch Black), but I wasn’t necessarily convinced of Brewis’s theory. Of course, it was only a theory, and he was, admittedly, really high, and besides, the aliens were only a vehicle for making the characters come together, anyway.
Overall:
Comedy, thriller, sci-fi, action, drama—one thing this movie is not is rehashed Hollywood leftovers. Attack the Block has a fresh, exciting, at times disorienting quality. If you like movies about fighting aliens that actually make you laugh, jump, and lean forward on the edge of your seat, then Attack the Block might be just the movie you’ve been waiting for. It’s definitely one of the best out there this summer.