In the summer of 2011, movie geeks everywhere were anxiously awaiting Cowboys and Aliens. On paper, it couldn't go wrong. Jon Favreau was just coming off of Iron Man, and Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and James Bond (Daniel Craig) were starring in it. The concept was an alien invasion movie set in the Old West. When it received a less than enthusiastic reception, fans were hungry to get that subversive fun alien invasion movie they thought they were getting in Cowboys and Aliens, and I think that is why people latched onto the British indie import Attack the Block. Attack the Block is a great movie and possesses many of the traits that Cowboys and Aliens was striving for. The fight scenes are frequent and fast-paced, the characters were memorable, and there was humor in the situation, even as the aliens became more dangerous. Attack the Block deserves credit for being a very entertaining and occasionally clever take on the alien invasion movie genre, but I believe that people fell in love with it much harder because they were so disappointed in Cowboys and Aliens.
Attack the Block takes place in a modern-day British slum where Sam (Jodie Whittaker), a local nurse, has just been mugged by a local gang. The ringleader Moses (John Boyega) is a drug dealer working for the neighborhood drug lord Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter), and his gang is made up of a bunch of kids who think they are the biggest bunch of bad-asses their neighborhood has ever seen. Everything changes, though, when an alien crash lands in their neighborhood, and they decide that it would be cool to kill it. Once a bunch more aliens show up, they start wetting their pants and acting like kids instead of thugs. They soon discover that they will have to band together with Sam, gather their weapons, and come up with a plan if they are going to survive the night.
Attack the Block has been compared to The Goonies, and in some respects, this is a fair comparison. There are many moments that reminded me of classic 80's films. The kids riding around on their bicycles reminded me of E.T. and The Goonies. The gang dynamics are similar to a kid gang like the Goonies except that instead of the gadgets kid or the one who used to take piano lessons, you have the kid with the samurai sword and the kid with the switchblade. Cowboys & Aliens in its own way was trying for that kind of group dynamic too with Harrison Ford playing the annoyed older brother, Olivia Wilde playing the hot chick, and Sam Rockwell playing the nerd.
Of course, the biggest difference between The Goonies, E.T., and Cowboys & Aliens and Attack the Block is that Attack the Block earned an R-rating. Major and minor characters are killed off in very graphic ways. One character gets its throat ripped out, and another gets his head crushed in with blood spurting out like a ripe berry. Besides that, the story's lovable gang are less than cuddly. These aren't British Aladdins who only want to steal some bread and swing away with a song and a smile. No, these kids are barely teenagers, and they are already mugging women at knife-point. With a less nuanced writer or director, Attack the Block would have been a slasher film with the audience cheering on the aliens as they take out the drug dealers, and yet somehow, I was more worried that the aliens would get Moses in Attack the Block than I was worried that the aliens would get Harrison Ford in Cowboys & Aliens. How is it that I care more about these little shits than James Bond and Indiana Jones as cowboys?
There are three main reasons why I got roped into Attack the Block and didn't get into Cowboys & Aliens. First, as I said before, major characters die in Attack the Block. It is established early on that no one is safe, not the loyal dog nor any of the kids in the gang. The filmmakers aren't going to pull punches just because a kid is in danger like the folks over at Cowboys & Aliens. It still bothers me that the writers of Cowboys & Aliens had the kid hide in an enclosed space, and then when the alien finds the kid, the alien exposes its most vulnerable spot so that the kid can easily kill the alien and escape. No, the kids in Attack the Block, big and small, have to really fight to survive, and because of that, the stakes are higher.
Second, Attack the Block is fast-paced. Once the alien invasion starts, characters are constantly on the go, but the script allows the audience to get to know these characters. In contrast, Cowboys & Aliens dragged along with these drawn out riding scenes, and somehow they managed to leave characters underdeveloped. There were only a few major fight scenes whereas in Attack the Block, the fighting hardly ever stops once it gets going.
Finally, Attack the Block succeeded where Cowboys & Aliens failed because Cowboys & Aliens was also coming out that summer. Ever since the trailer first premiered, film geeks had been obsessing over the idea of Cowboys & Aliens. People were primed for a fast, fun, and crazy alien invasion movie, and around the time they were let down by Cowboys & Aliens, there had already been buzz for Attack the Block out of SXSW and the Los Angeles Film Festival. Without Cowboys & Aliens, I believe that Attack the Block might have become a cult classic with regular midnight screenings and a small-but-rabid fan base. With the built up audience of Cowboys & Aliens in place, however, Attack the Block went from a festival darling to the indie hit of the year. Attack the Block did everything that Cowboys & Aliens tried to do, and they did it better. Is it the new District 9 as some have suggested? I would say not, but if it gets more people to check out this subversive British import, I can't complain.
SPECIAL FEATURES
I don't usually go that in-depth with the special features, but the behind-the-scenes documentary Behind the Block on the Blu-ray release is worth raving over. I wish that every team filming these behind-the-scenes featurettes put the time and energy into showing how these filmmakers work and why they were passionate about this project. After watching this featurette, I wanted to go back and re-watch the film. If you pick up the Blu-ray, I highly recommend taking the time to watch it.
The Blu-ray release also comes with unfilmed sequences from the movie, another featurette That's a Rap, a featurette on the aliens, and two commentaries with Joe Cornish and members of the cast and one commentary with Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright.
"Attack the Block" is on sale October 25, 2011 and is rated R. Action, Adventure, Comedy, Indie, Sci-Fi. Written and directed by Joe Cornish. Starring Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Jumayn Hunter, Nick Frost.
