[7.7/10] I had a hard time getting into *Attack the Block* at first. It’s not that the film wasn’t well made or well acted. It’s that we meet our perspective characters when they’re mugging a poor, frightened woman and roughing her up when she doesn’t turn over her worldly possessions fast enough. It’s a terrifying scene, one that made my blood boil a little bit when it became clear, after the film got going in earnest, that it wanted you to be on the muggers’ side.

The most impressive trick writer-director Joe Cornish pulls off in the film is not the well-crafted script or impressive special effects or the wonderfully-built horror and tension. It’s the fact that by the end of the movie, you are on their side and so is their victim. It doesn’t come easy. But as the film progresses, you learn more and more about why the kids are like this, the choices they have and don’t have, the environments they grow up in and hassles that come with it.

Those things don’t erase what happens in the film’s beginning, but they explain it. Apologies and youth and understanding become enough to sway you of an inner decency in Moses and his crew that, if fostered rather than stamped out, could make a hero out of a mugger.

With that backbone, it’s hard to pin down a genre for *Attack the Block*. The best way I can describe it is as *The Warriors* meets *Alien* meets *Kids* meets *Die Hard* meets *Night of the Living Dead*.

It is a film about the different crews and cohorts operating in and around the titular block. It’s an alien invasion story, with snarling and fearsome monsters lurking around every corner. It is a frank look at the slang and manner of young men and women getting by despite poverty and a lack of supervision. It is a rollicking action film bolstered by the claustrophobia of it taking place largely in one building. And it is a story about people from different walks of life, forced together by circumstance, finding common cause and common ground in desperate times.

Cornish makes all of those disparate elements work by integrating them all together with vivid characters. His script treats each of the residents and visitors of The Block like wind-up toys, spending much of the first act winding them up and then devoting the rest of the movie to their frantic movement around the game board, bumping into one another. Whether it’s a street gang, stoners, nurses, cops, gangsters, nine-year-old wannabes, a group of young women, or even the alien attackers, Cornish and company mix and match the pieces brilliantly, with humor and sparks flying at each new combination.

Those sparks (often aided by exploding fireworks) dovetail nicely with the impressive set pieces, cinematography, and production design. *Attack the Block* looks remarkably high quality for a film made with a $10 million budget. It’d be too much to say the film feels realistic exactly, but Cornish and director of photography Tom Townend give the movie a washed out, green-graded, Fincher-esque look that exudes a certain lived-in realism even within the plainly heightened reality of an alien invasion flick.

That’s aided by the look of the creatures themselves. The alien, hulking black masses of fur with multiple layers of glow-in-the-dark teeth, are the perfect antagonists from a visual standpoint. They allow the film to take the *Jaws* approach, leaving more of the terror to suggestion and expectation, then having to show the beasts full-on. The editing matches that, with us rarely getting a clean look at the monsters, just their bright gaping maws, reading to snap and bite.

It’s no surprise, then, how well *Attack the Block* works as a horror movie. The kills are doled out judiciously, and the threat level escalates accordingly. Those threats come from both the extraterrestrial pursuers and the ones native to The Block, each emerging to torment our heroes at inopportune and unexpected times, and even running into one another. Through all of these sequences, whether they’re frantic chases, smoke-filled brawls, or daring final stands, Cornish and his team shoot for maximum suspense and heart-pumping investment in everyone’s fate.

The movie also gets some extra juice from being something different than the standard alien invasion movie. Beyond just the clever explanation for the extraterrestrials’ pursuit of the main characters, the focus on a localized, poorer, urban setting distinguishes the film from the globe-dotting, worldwide fare like *Independence Day*. That gives *Attack the Block* a more intimate feel, making the menace seem realer and giving the film more space to explore the particulars and real world specifics of that space and those that inhabit it.

That ties nicely into Moses’s story and the broader metaphor the adventures of him and Sam, the woman he mugged, represent here. There’s the sense of Moses at a precipice, trying to decide between rising above petty crime into the hardcore drug world or follow his better angels and become the better person that can save the day (and, not for nothing, earn the approval of his crush). John Boyega, in his film debut, plays the role with a low-burning intensity, that conveys an inner life to the otherwise stoic character.

That is, ultimately, the broader project of the film beyond its alien-infused horror and humor. The audience, like Sam, slowly but surely comes to know of that inner life, and the more complicated and pitiable treatment and circumstances that have made Moses into the person he is and the person he could be. There’s plenty of less-than-subtle critiques of the police and the government who contribute to The Block being the way it is, giving its residents a sense of being under attack long before alien monsters arrived. But they find purchase in an unlikely hero, made all the more unlikely by the way in which Sam and the viewer meet him and, over the course of the film, gradually but firmly come to understand and root for him.

An alien invasion hits the "hood" in London reeking havoc with the local gangs. Excellent performances by all invoived including a breakout role for John Boyega (or Star Wars fame).

An alien invasion hits the "hood" in London reeking havoc with the local gangs. Excellent performances by all invoived including a breakout role for John Boyega (or Star Wars fame).

It’s raining Gollums!

Attack the Block is written and directed by Joe Cornish. It stars Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Jumayn Hunter, Luke Treadaway and Nick Frost. Music is by Basement Jaxx and Steven Price and cinematography by Tom Townend.

When a South London tower block comes under attack from aliens, a young gang of lads and the nurse they just mugged have to band together to fight back.
In Britain we was wondering just when Joe Cornish was going to turn his hand to directing a feature film, here for his debut he tackled a sci-fiction action comedy with a wry bit of social commentary thrown in for good measure – it was worth the wait.

With one Edgar Wright hovering about in the producers lounge and Nick Frost on hand as a reassuringly adult comedic presence, it could be argued that Attack the Block has joined the Wright/Pegg production line. Yet when you break it down this does in fact homage a myriad of siege invasion films, but still it becomes very much its own animal.

Cornish dangerously structures his film by introducing us to a young gang of kids who think nothing of mugging a single defenceless woman – with a knife. With the group spouting their turf speak (some none British views may struggle initially with the dialogue), they are not a bunch of youngsters one can easily get on side with. In fact to dislike them in an instant is wholly justifiable and understandable, so much so that once the aliens arrive it’s a human reaction to root for them to rid us of these troublesome youths. So yes, dangerous by Cornish, yet astute as it happens.

As the pic progresses and we spend time with the gang, we start to understand their way of life, their part in a tough society. It’s during this key phase that Cornish brings in another structure, that of the victim and the perpetrators having to band together to fight an enemy, surely he isn’t going to make heroes out of this gang of youthful miscreants? So once this scene is set, and the aliens start to unleash toothsome hell on this part of South London, it’s battle royale time. The blood and jokes seamlessly flow together, the score booms and other characters are introduced, some either for a lighter angle – others to annoy us and maybe be set up for alien gnasher fodder?

The aliens themselves are a splendid creation, a new addition to an overstocked market. One of the youngsters calls them gorilla wolf things, that’s about right, they be jet black with spiky hair and bio luminescent jaws and claws, they move on all fours. And then it’s the last part of Cornish’s clever structure plan, for as we are given a reason why the aliens are after this particular group, so does characters transformations offer a prudent point. There is hope unbound, not just for people in movie, but for societies fractured by the way of the life afforded them. While the lesson here of people taking responsibility for their actions, to right their wrongs, is written loud and proud.

Smart and fresh performances across the board, led by the wonderful Whittaker and a star making turn from Boyega, close out the deal. Attack the Block is a genre spilcer of a picture that brings something new to the table it sits at. Trust Bruv! 8/10

My one issue with this film is that it is too short and also it is a very basic premise, otherwise this film is some really amazing British film making. Having grown up on a tower block in London, I can say that the depiction of the kids in this film is very accurate as they are just kids trying to be adults and what I love about this film is the moment the alien invasion starts, all of the characters start to show their true colours.

The premise is super simple, group of youths mug a lady at the start and then have to help / team up with the lady to get through the night and take down these aliens which have chosen to invade a small area in South London. But the simplicity is the reason this film is super rewatchable, the direction in this film from Joe Cornish is great and I would love to see him work on more Star Wars films or bigger budget sci-fi films.

Also, everyone acts their parts really well with John Boyega (Moses) and Jumayn Hunter (Hi-Hatz) absolutely stealing the show. I also think that the way the film can go from a serious moment to a really funny moment is so great. If you have teenage kids then I recommend watching this film with them and I am sure you will all have fun with it, just don't take it too seriously.