Just as Shaun of the Dead was a fresh, funny, and very British take on the zombie genre, Attack the Block is a fresh, funny, and very British take on the alien invasion genre. Set in a working class neighborhood in South London, Attack the Block sets itself up as different from other alien movies right away. The heroes of this film are not the white, middle-aged American men we're accustomed to seeing in movies like Signs, War of the Worlds, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. The heroes of Attack the Block are young, black (with a token white kid), poor hoodlums who terrorize and mug a nurse on her way home from work in the first scene.
I liked how director Joe Cornish took the conventions of the alien invasion genre and turned them on their head. Not only does he play with moral ambiguity--i.e. the "bad guys" turn out to be good and the criminals become the protectors; he also makes a point that the most vulnerable and, presumably, weakest members of society--minorities, inner-city youth, kids from bad families--are stronger, smarter, and braver than we might think.
In addition to the unique spin, Attack the Block has plenty of laughs ("What's Ron's weed room?" "It's a room, filled with weed, that belongs to Ron...") and a few scenes of horror that seem all the more horrific given that they take place in a comedy. To use Shaun of the Dead once again as a comparison, the scene where a character gets his intestines ripped out by zombies is especially shocking because it comes right after a scene where they beat up a zombie to the jukebox strains of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". In these two movies, the humor serves to both alleviate and exacerbate the violence and dread.
The main problem I had with Attack the Block was simply that I had trouble understanding the dialogue. The thick, English accents and slang made it damn near impossible to understand what the hell people were saying half (or more like 60 percent) of the time. And sadly, this diminished my appreciation and enjoyment of the movie.
Also, although Attack the Block is funny and scary, it was never THAT funny and scary to me. I giggled, I chuckled, I covered my eyes. But in the end, the movie was more forgettable than I expected it to be. I don't think it has the rewatchability factor that Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, or other similar comedies have.
So in conclusion, I like what Joe Cornish did with this movie, and I would recommend it to fans of alien movies and genre-defying flicks, but personally I wasn't crazy in love with it.
3 out of 5 stars
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