Directed by Joe Cornish. Starring Nick Frost, Jodie Whittaker, Luke Treadaway, John Boyega 16 cert, gen release, 87mins
MUCH HAS been made of the new vogue for lo-fi sci-fi. Movies such as Monsters, Source Codeand now Attack the Block, argue chin-stroking pundits, represent a new vanguard striking back at bloated Hollywood SFX extravaganzas.
Over at the moneyed Dark Side, Cameron and Lucas are always happy to borrow the outfits but rarely scratch beneath the superficial dimensions of the genre.
Thus a new cinematic breed, a space opera of ideas and depth, has arrived to save us from blue-screen brainlessness.
The truth is a little more complicated than this tidy dichotomy suggests. Relations between science fiction and cinema, though skittish since the moon landings, have frequently spawned interesting mutations.
Never mind the big-budget digital anomalies in the upper reaches of the all-time box-office charts, rarely a season goes by without a smart, speculative cult hit to call its own. The best science-fiction flicks of recent years – Pi, Primer, Fermat's Room– have invariably cost less than five seconds worth of blue toenail by Avatarstandards.
In keeping with the trend, the entire budget for Attack the Blockwould not, we suspect, have stretched to an outsized Smurf earlobe. But who needs obscene amounts of cash when you have solid plotting, well-drawn characters and good horror timing?
Making his big-screen debut as a screenwriter and director, comedian Joe Cornish offers a neat twist on the pop-literate Brit flick we've come to associate with his movie-making chums Edgar Wright ( Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim) and Garth Jennings ( Son of Rambow). Don't mind the marketing: Cornish's picture is far more nuanced and textured than the " Shaun of the Deadwith Aliens!" tagline might have us believe.
The film, mostly a sort of Goonieswith chavs, opens with a touch of social realism and a properly horrible mugging. A gang of young hoodies and ne'er-do-wells, making good use of the distracting festivities of Bonfire Night, set upon a terrified nurse (Whittaker) as she walks home to her south London flat. Fortunately for their prey, the crew, headed up by wannabe gangsta Moses (wonderful newcomer Boyega), are momentarily distracted from their misdeeds when an asteroid hits a nearby car.
Or is it an asteroid? On close inspection, the extraterrestrial rock harbours a hideous alien nasty.
Undaunted, the spirited villains give chase, kick seven shades of goo out of the creature, then drag its lifeless carcass towards a local stoner den run by Nick Frost. (Luke Treadaway, playing a posh student toker, hangs around as a Cheech to Frost’s Chong.)
Unhappily for the fellows and indeed their entire high-rise block, the creature was not alone. As the unexpectedly hairy invaders surge, thug life doesn’t seem quite so appealing after all.
It's not too surprising that Cornish, a veteran of The Adam and Joe Show, is adept with pop-up scares and thrilling corridor chases.
Having honed his skills on bedsit blockbuster remakes featuring stuffed animals and household knick-knacks, the director breezes through the genre beats.
As a horror-comedy, Attack the Blockis a heap of fun enlivened by hip, urban grime patois. As science fiction, there's a bit more to it.
Working around an ancient plot device – former enemies band together to face a common foe – the director sets up Asbo stereotypes only to chip away at them. The moment when Jodie Whittaker, now reluctantly co-operating with her erstwhile attackers, spies a Spiderman duvet on Moses’ unmade bed is genuinely poignant. Like us she realises that beneath the hardened exterior lies a kid who loves friendly neighbourhood superheroes.
He just needed a kind-hearted movie and a swarm of killer monsters to shine.
