Attack the Block
2011
**
Director: Joe Cornish
Cast: Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, Nick Frost
A young nurse is mugged by a group of teenager hoodlums in a south London council estate. When aliens attack the neighbourhood, the very same kids look to be her best bet for survival. Joe Cornish's directorial debut wants to be a horror comedy, but the film is neither scary nor funny. It's just another dull, formulaic and predictably gory monster movie, this time with creatures that look like gorilla wolves in ultraviolet lighting. In Mars Attacks!, video game-obsessed boys saved the planet, so a scenario in which deadbeats turn into heroes is nothing new. Lack of originality aside, it would help immensely if I could care about these deadbeats, or even tell them apart from one another. Cornish adds some social commentary into his pulpy mix, but the attempt is heavy-handed and ill-advised.
