Movie review in the Friday, Sept. 9 Oregonian....
"Attack the Block" is a terrific midnight movie of the future -- a tough, funny, fast-moving and tightly constructed John Carpenter riff in which a bickering group fights a pack of space monsters in and around a single location.
But despite the self-conscious Carpenter echoes (right down to the minimalist synth score), writer/director Joe Cornish makes one major storytelling decision that leaves "Block" feeling surprisingly fresh: His heroes are the criminal-punk kids who almost always bite it in the first scene in any other creature feature -- allowing for some electrifying, comical and stereotype-busting variations on the usual formula.
The film starts with a mugging -- a gang of young South London kids led by Moses (John Boyega) rob a nurse (Jodie Whittaker) at knifepoint. Almost immediately, an alien crash-lands nearby, the explosion ignored amid the Guy Fawkes Day fireworks. Nearly as immediately, the gang decides to kill it and sell the carcass to the tabloids.
They don't count on a swarm of the dead alien's pals crash-landing shortly thereafter -- chasing our teen-and-younger antiheroes into the public-housing block they call home and maybe even forcing the ne'er-do-wells to confront their responsibility to the community.
Cornish makes a feature debut here that's almost as stunning as when his pal (and executive producer) Edgar Wright invaded the cineplex with "Shaun of the Dead." Cornish earns suspense, using the geography of the housing block like John McTiernan used Nakatomi Plaza in "Die Hard." (And, again, with wry variations; bickering heroes are always trying to reach a secure safe haven in these sorts of flicks, but in "Attack the Block," that safe haven is a hyper-secure penthouse full of weed.)
He also gets across-the-board great performances out of the mostly-teen ensemble cast (especially Boyega), injects a bit of social commentary, and rocks his low budget with careful shooting. The monsters here are hilariously, self-consciously fake -- looking like nothing so much as ink-black Muppets with glowing fangs -- but Cornish's self-assurance somehow makes the fakery feel awesome and all that's needed, as if Hollywood's average pixel-rich alien menace were a needless waste of money.
_____
(88 min.; rated R for creature violence, drug content and pervasive language; playing in Portland at Regal Lloyd Center) Grade: B-plus
'Attack the Block' (The Oregonian, Friday, Sept. 9, 2011)
Comments