Cinematic alien invasions have taken all sorts of shapes and sizes over the decades – be it the gargantuan saucers from Independence Day hovering over the world’s national monuments to human-replicating pods that infest and replace the population of a small Anerican town. However, there are precious little example of encounters that go off the end of the Hynek scale that involve as strange a location as that of Joe Cornish’s Attack The Block; a movie that sees snarling extraterrestrials descend upon a block of flats located in the south of London.
Cornish has always been a savvy sort, rising from the Adam And Joe Show to make a string of projects that feature younger casts in story’s that staunchly refuses to talk down to its audience, but with his feature debut, he really excelled himself. After all, making your heroes the type of inner city kids that the press had routinely been demonising was an incredibly risky venture back in 2011 – yet, like all good sci-fi, Attack The Block proves to still provide a bite far stronger than a set of glowing blue, alien jaws.
Coming home last at night, trainee nurse Samantha Adam’s is mugged by a gang of youths lead by the stoic Moses while the rest of the gang, made up of Pest, Dennis, Jerome and Biggz, look on. However the robbery is cut short when a falling meteorite ploughs through a nearby parked car and Samantha manages to get away while the kids examine the wreckage they are themselves attacked by a dog sized, clawed, white-skinned creature whom the gang “merk” after a brief scuffle.
Surmising that this mysterious, unknown creature might score them a payday, a scratched Moses takes the carcass of the thing to local weed dealer Hi-Hatz to keep it safe, but as the local gang leader attempts to recruit the young man, more meteorites fall from the sky, blending in with the fireworks used to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. Excitedly dashing out into the night hoping to fuck up yet more rangy, hairless humunculi, Moses and his crew soon find out that the creature they initially killed was a female of the species and the male is decidedly more dangerous. Covered in dense, inky black hair, sporting day-glo choppers and roughly coming in at the size of your average gorilla, these imposing quadrupeds unsurprisingly have the formally brazen kids running for their lives. Matters get even more complicated when the police, led by Samantha, get involved and after the po-po get turned into chow, she teams up with her muggers as they fight their way back to the block for safety.
However, as the bodies start to pile up, this group of kids known for cause trouble around the block, become its reluctant protectors and as we find out more about them, we discover the reasons why they do the things they do.
How much you enjoy Attack The Block will no doubt hinge on your opinions on the movie making a gang of young criminals its heroes, but whether you stand with the Daily Mail’s approach to street crime; believe more in the infamous, 2006, “hug a hoddie” speech given by David Cameron or lurk somewhere more in the middle, the film handles its controversial leads extraordinarily well. Cornish approaches Moses and his friends realistically while simultaneously choosing not to gloss over the more disturbing things these kids do to pass the time. When we first we meet them, they are robbing a white woman at knife point, but as the film goes on we discover that these kids are barely fifteen and despite their posturing and near-constant use of slang – it could almost be an entirely different language – these are just directionless young men abandoned by the establishment.
Of course, all this social commentary is all very well and good, but even Cornish’s pitch perfect approach wouldn’t mean much if the film itself wasn’t up to snuff. Thankfully, all the running, chasing, mauling bits are handled equally well, leading to a sci-fi/horror/comedy that comfortably sits adjacent to Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy when dealing with genre scenarios in a very amusing and very British way.
The dialogue is natural, yet very, very funny as these inner city “‘thugs” throw down with these “Big alien gorilla wolf motherfuckers” (thanks for that, Pest). “This is too much madness to explain in one text!” babbles Jerome excitedly, while Nick Frost’s weed dealer describes their stench smelling like “a shit did a shit” and such killer lines make the cast characters incredibly easy to empathize with regardless of how they choose to spend their free time.
Essentially a South London Goonies twinned with Cameron’s Aliens, Cornish not only offers up a truly original setting for us to embrace, but the sci-fi shenanigans are also extraordinarily well carried out as Attack The Block’s alien assholes manages to be that rarest of sci-fi holy grails: a new breed of extraterrestrial that doesn’t shameless thieve from Giger’s xenomorph. These shrieking furballs with their eerie, glowing, bear trap fangs are genuine threat and look fucking amazing as their hairy bodies are so black, they look like galloping, slathering silhouettes as they charge at their victims. On top of that, the fact that these bad boys are mostly practical makes them exponentially much cooler. They rack up something of a messy body count too and it’s yet another feather in Cornish’s cap that he’s not too precious with his young cast, having the Godzilla-sized balls to not have every member make it to the end credits without huge fucking bites taken out of them.
Speaking of that cast, the movie features some early appearances from some noticable stars-in-waiting with John Boyega kick-starting his illustrious career by adding vast amounts of heroic layers to his scowling gang leader and future TARDIS dweller, Jodie Whittaker, helping to create an understanding between classes as they bond to try and cleanse the blocks of a far worse infestation than dry rot or random crime.
At the time, some simply wouldn’t meet this movie halfway which proved to be an overwhelming shame as what we had here is a sci-fi actioner that’s smart, funny, exciting, legitimately cool and that also seamlessly labels on a ton of social commentary that isn’t preachy for a single, solitary second.
Never mind attacking the block, people should have been queuing around the thing in order to witness one of the best damn alien invasion movies of that decade.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 