Witness my flock, a fantastic sci-fi film from the last decade! Today we receive the blessings of 2011's Attack the Block!
Attack the Block begins in an inner city London neighborhood that is considered by many to be "a bad part of town". While returning home from work a Nurse named Samantha is mugged by a group of teenage hoodlums. Her mugging is interrupted when a meteorite falls to earth and destroys a nearby car. Samantha escapes and the group of troublemakers investigates. What they find is not a meteorite at all, but an alien creature. The creature flees but the group eventually captures and kills the monster. Several other objects begin to fall from the sky.
Thus the action begins and we begin to become acquainted with our party of heroes. The primary protagonist of the film is the leader of the group, Moses. Moses is a stoic and hardened character that is caught between his desire to perform masculinity and fearlessness, but still struggles with the loss of his innocence. He is portrayed by John Boyega! The other boys look up to him. Next we have the Robin to Moses' batman, Pest. Pest is a mouthy and horny teen that serves as the foil to Moses' contemplative and quiet personality. Then there is Dennis, a pizza delivery boy and the most impulsive of the group. Gerome, he's the one with glasses, is perhaps the most curious and charismatic of the group. One gets the impression that Gerome is treated like the most mature member for purely aesthetic reasons, but in actuality he's just easy going and inerested in the people around him. Rounding out the gang is the junior member, Biggs. Biggs perhaps more than the other members looks up to Moses the most, and while excitable and naive not the least mature member of the group.
This cast is exceptionally likeable, and despite that the film opened with them terrorizing a poor woman we are immediately sucked into their world and understand they aren't evil but kind of misguided due to the circumstances in which they live. One such circumstance is that they are closely tied to actual gang members and drug dealers who live in their neighborhood, represented by HiHatz and Ron respectively. Hihatz is a feared and respected big time gangster on this london scene that the whole group seems to idolize, yet they are clearly also afraid of his unpredictable behavior. He has his eye on Moses and is interested in bringing him into the fold. Ron is a grower and supplier, played enjoyably enough by Nick Frost (giving a ton of room to the young cast and not overshadowing them in the least, a true sign of an actor who is all about the movie and not his own ego), who is way more friendly with these children than a local drug supplier really should be. He is however a non threatening and protective, albeit incredibly lazy, presence in these kids lives.
Seeking fame and an up in their reps the block kids decide to take the alien creature to Ron's apartment and figure out exactly how to turn it into a benefit for them. What these boys don't know is that the other objects falling from the sky are the larger and more deadly alien creatures. Theses monsters named "Big Alien Gorilla Wolf Mother Fuckers" by the boys, are the males of the species which they killed and they are attracted to the smell of the dead female. The battle for survival is soon on.
The boys are hunted by the creatures and the police after the nurse from before reports them, and in fleeing both these threats to their survival and freedom they end up stealing a police vehicle and crashing it into Hi-Hatz car, creating a new enemy and another threat to face. They seek safety in Ron's apartment, arm themselves with bats, bottle rockets and a bitchin samurai sword and take the fight to the creatures. Eventually they are reunited with Samantha who they learn is a part of their community, and they reveal a bit of their misguided world views about why in their view it was perfectly fine to rob her, and she becomes their ally, treating their wounds and giving them refuge in her apartment for a time.
After some losses Moses decides to take responsibility for the nights events. He straps the dead female alien to his back, grabs the katana and leads the creatures to their deaths jumping out a window of the tower the films action takes place in and around. Moses survives and even though he is in the process of being arrested when the final curtain falls, the whole community rallies around him chanting his name and acknowledging that he is a hero.
Best Character: Go Down Moses!
In a break out role, the young Boyega is absolutely killing it in this movie. More on that later. The character of Moses is effectively selling the story of a boy on the brink of manhood trying to come to terms with his place in society, his upbringing, his future, and all that entails. He doesn't wax poetic about it, instead embracing a sort of affected stoicism on top of his already inward and reflective personality. It's so refreshing to see the end of childhood so honestly reflected, a rare depiction even for films that feature children who aren't pressured to murder their innocence and pursue reputations amongst their communities. Moses also has values and he struggles when they are challenged. I think he is tragically underrated as one of the best heroic figures in science fiction action films.
Best Sequence: Hall of Horror!
There's a fantastic 8 bit rendition of this scene somewhere on tumblr. The climax of the feature when Moses steps up and defeats the alien invaders is just an iconic image. As he's running down the hallway, sword in hand, pursued by this wall of blackness and the glowing blue jaws of oblivion behind him. It's an amazing sequence if just for the aesthetic experience.
Most Holy Shit Moment: Elevator Slaughter
At one point in the movie Hi-Hatz and his cohorts are trapped in an elevator with the beasts as the door closes and the gunshots begin to go of you are convinced that this is the end of the gang troubles for our heroes, but a short while later when that elevator reaches it's destination and opens it's doors revealing the bloody aftermath of battle, it's not the imposing figure of our creatures that emerges, but a pissed off Hi-Hatz. That is one dangerous dude.
Back to Moses for a moment. I'm not sure if this was John Boyega's first role. Probably not, as he is so talented at portraying so much inner depth without saying a whole lot. John Boyega is probably best known for his later appearances in the Star Wars films as former imperial storm trooper Finn, and that's really a shame. That role is NOTHING compared to Moses, and this really should have been his big break out. Too few people have seen Attack the Block, and I would really like to see people commending Boyega for his work as this leading role. He's really showing off his chops here, and he's got them chops.
Worst Character: Low-Hatz
Sometimes in movies there are situations where characters are understandably pissed off and where shit does not go their way, but that a simple conversation could resolve. Like Hi-Hatz is clearly more effective as an obstacle than an aid in this movie, with him offing alien creatures like he does clearly there would be nothing for the younger cast to do were he to come to their side. But it just bugs me that he's such a vengeful nut that even once he learns that they are being invaded by hyper carnivorous alien monsters, he's still murderously pissed off about his car. Come on man, that's TDL if I've ever heard of it. How satisfying would it have been for him to come to Moses side saying something like "That car was worth more than your life to me, You're gonna owe me til the day I die" and then getting immediately eaten by monsters. Idk, something like that would have at least given the character some capacity for reason that would make him less frustrating.
Best Effect: Not Even Light Escapes
The Aliens are absolutely iconic. Easy as hell to draw too. They are basically silhouettes with glowing blue fangs (kinda like those plastic vampire teeth that they sell in dollar stores around Halloween. God I love those things). They are portrayed by actors and puppeteers, and the fur on the monsters is later digitally altered to be utterly unreflective, so black that they seem to absorb all the light around them. It's the perfect balance of CG and practical effects that was severely lacking around the time.
Worst Aspect: Arrested Development
The Ending is so bitter sweet. It's very similar to my issue with Hi-Hatz. The evidence of an alien invasion and the witnesses have to be everywhere. Moses is clearly a hero. I'd like to have seen him being released or something before the screen goes black. I know that this was supposed to be a bit of a statement about how these kids are judged unfairly by society, demonized even in the face of an actual alien invasion, but it's still so unsatisfying.
Worst Kill: Only the Good Die Young
I know that at some point one of the heroes was going to have to die. And the only ancillary characters that weren't villains to some degree were very young adorable children, BUT it was still so unpleasant. Dennis is unceremoniously decapitated by the alien monsters when they break in through an apartment window.
There is a balance between hateable and likeable that horror movies must make with their characters. Characters have to be likeable enough that we care what happens to them but not so likeable that it ruins the movie if they die. The other option is to make a character hateable enough that we want to see them die, but not so hateable that we don't care about the movie. Attack the Block has no truly hateable characters, and the death of Dennis flirts with being too sad. No Best Kill for Attack the Block as I don't enjoy watching the characters here get killed in the slightest.
Most Charming Aspect: Slanguage Barrier
I'm not British. In fact, I'm pretty damn American. So i'm not entirely sure exactly how foul mouthed the cast of Attack the Block is being. But to me the slang is just this charming funny manner that the gang has that's pretty darn endearing. I'm sure if it was American slang they might be kind of gross feeling, maybe not. Either way, I loved hearing what the kids across the pond are saying.
Attack the Block is great to look at. It has great effects. The characters are charming. The actors are incredibly talented. When this film came out it was completely overlooked due to the emerging megahype about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When everyone was asking if an Avengers style movie was actually going to be pulled off not a lot of people were looking to British Sci Fi to satisfy their special effects and action adventure lusts. I knew this movie was coming out due to hours spent on Slashfilm, and I still didn't see it until 3 years after it was out. I wish I could have gotten a hold of it sooner as it always looked interesting. It's honestly better than anything that it was ignored in favor of. If you haven't checked this one out yet, please do, you will not be disappointed.
