The brits know what they are doing when it comes to science fiction, but they tend to go to it with their tongues glued in their cheeks. Hitchhiker's Guide. Doctor Who. It's almost a given that the collision between UK and ET will be a little absurd. So when the hilarious Joe Cornish (half of Adam and Joe) directs a movie about the alien invasion of a South London tower block, you expect jokes. Wryness. Maybe even hilarity.
What you get does have laughs, but they're used as a relief after a brutal bit of action rather than being the film's point. Attack The Block is no comedy. Instead, it's 90 minutes of furiously paced action, with the jolting smarts to stand up against prime-period John Carpenter. Here, a gang of street kids encounter and then "kick the sh*t out of" an alien life form, precipitating a vicious ET assault on their turf. The kids themselves are nearly all fresh faces and put in sharp, appealing turns – Boyega as tough guy Moses and Alex Esmail as the bratty Pest are especially good.
Making these adolescent scamps likeable is the biggest trick the movie pulls off (after the terrifying, ink-pelted and fluorescent-toothed aliens tearing through doors, walls and flesh) because there's no doubt that these boys are a Broken Britain nightmare. We first meet them, mugging a lovely nurse (played by Jodie Whittaker). Then, when the assault from outer space traps them together in Nick Frost's pot room, the characters come to an uneasy understanding. Still, it's to Cornish's credit that, while we warm to Moses and co, there's never any attempt to diminish the fact that the gang have done some pretty thuggish things.
And that means their eventual heroism is even more affecting, dodging Little Britain parody for something both more complex and more sympathetic. The film builds through a series of tightly controlled action set-pieces inside the block (called Wyndham House – a neat nod to British sci-fi in its austerely intelligent guise) up to a pyrotechnic climax that will have you shaking your fist with unashamed patriotic pride. We might have an underclass of excluded youths, undervalued NHS workers and coppers who fold at first sight of a space beast, but damn, the brits know what they're doing when it comes to science fiction.
