Attack The Block
Review by Anthony Morris
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Attack The Block
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Aliens; they're kind of snobby when you think about it.
Given the choice of the entire human race to eat, time and time again they go straight for the white middle-class types.
Even in District 9,
which at least had the aliens hovering over a South African shanty town
instead of vapourising New York yet again, who was the guy who was
infected by the alien DNA? A white public servant.
So it's
more than just a cool twist on the usual "aliens attack" plot when a
bunch of aliens (pitch black space bears with glow-in-the-dark teeth)
crash on a south London housing estate and start wrecking up the place
with only a bunch of hoodie-wearing teens to stand in their way.
Yes,
this does require you to sympathise with the kind of teens usually seen
on a "youth running wild" report on Today Tonight (we first meet them
robbing a nurse at knife-point, though the film puts a slightly
different spin on things later) but the stereotype is quickly shattered
as the teens take on hordes of strange space-bear creatures chewing
through anyone who gets in their way.
They don't become the usual clichéd heroes either.
Instead
their heroism develops naturally from their nature as thrill-seeking
teens looking for action and excitement, and when things go from bad to
worse they step up because… well, who else is going to stand up and
defend an scuzzy tower block?
There are literally dozens of
quotable lines here : "Maybe there was a party at the zoo and a monkey
f**ked a fish" is one explanation put forward for where the creatures
attacking them came from – the cast of unknowns are great, and the
whole film is a note-perfect take on the 80s era "kids versus monsters"
genre that updates it for the 21st century without losing any of the
charm.
There's been a bunch of alien invasion films this year; this one is by far the best.
4.5 out
of 5
Attack The Block
Australian release: 1st December,
2011
Official
Site: Attack The Block
Cast: Nick Frost, Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Luke Treadaway, Alex Esmail
Director: Joe Cornish
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