Attack the Block: Review

Attack the Block is a British film directed by Joe Cornish who is part of the team that brought us such movies as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Staring  Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard and Nick Frost.

It takes place in London’s inner-city Council Estates Project block on Bonfire Night, a British holiday. A gang of teenagers are attacked by mysterious aliens that fall from the sky in meteors during the fireworks of the events. There is an underlying backdrop of inner-city youth problems such as gangs, poverty and drugs. The characters, although mostly unknown, become very likable in a very short time.

I really liked this movie. I admired the fact that the monsters/aliens weren’t all CGI. They used old-school special effects that made them feel much more real and therefore gave more of a sense of urgency and danger. Not to mention the fact that they were downright brutal and creepy as Hell!

My opinion is that way too much CGI is used in movies today and old-school special effects as an art form are being lost in the wayside. This movie reestablishes those old-school effects and does a downright spooky job at it. You can tell these things are in the room with the characters and it puts a bit of fear and danger into the elements. Just the scenes where the aliens would bite something with their glowing teeth, the teeth sinking in slowly like an unstoppable vice grip was downright unnerving.

The comedy and the acting were top-notch in my opinion. I suppose the movie could have been just a bit more intense at some parts, but it is a movie about teenagers fighting aliens.

The only bad thing I have to say about this movie is that the inner-city English spoken by the kids in this movie is so broken and slangish that you pretty much have to have the subtitles turned on to even halfway understand what the Hell they’re talking about most of the time. I personally love it though.

This movie is a must see if you love anything Sci-fi or Horror! If you collect, buy it!