Hoods & Aliens

Hoods & Aliens

Fireworks explode in the sky above London while an alien crashes to Earth, unseen. Also, at the same time, on a dark street, a young nurse is being robbed by a gang of teenage hoodlums with their faces hidden in scary hooded sweatshirts. Things get complicated when the alien attacks the muggers and the nurse decides she’s better off sticking with them.

That’s the setup for “Attack the Block,” an enormously satisfying thriller made with a great deal of energy, imagination and fun that tells a story we’re familiar with in ways that are new. Its closest relatives are probably 1970s B-movies; it has roughly same sized effects but none of their funk or cynicism. It happens mostly outside one cheap South London apartment complex (“estate” is British), which provides geographical variety because as they fight off aliens together, junior thugs from different floors stop being faceless and become known to each other as individuals who have resources. This must be some kind of growth experience sent from outer space.

“Defend the Block,” maybe? The movie proves once again that zombie/vampire/monster movies are where new ideas in filmmaking go to break through. The genre is bigger than any star (although unknown actors always help). Darkness conceals many limitations of low-budget special effects systems. What you need is ideas.

When John Carpenter made “Assault on Precinct 13” early in his career, he gave today’s low-budget filmmakers permission: You can make an effective thriller using essentially one location and a few actors if your screenplay plays truth-or-dare with real life. Joe Cornish’s first feature as writer-director he’s an English comic actor who co-wrote Spielberg’s upcoming “The Adventures of Tin-Tin” is smart about its characters: We feel we know them as people soon after we meet them, partly because they’re sharply drawn by Cornish, partly because of the actors’ gifts.

The most valuable find may be Boyega as Moses, the pack leader who quickly grasps the full dimensions of the alien invasion. It turns out that Moses’ knowledge of the block and its residents and his ability to deal with people are exactly what’s needed.

Cornish has assembled an interesting cross-section. We meet the local crime lord; we meet the block’s drug dealer; we meet (rather surprisingly) some family members of gang members. We see how quickly police leap to conclusions and arrest innocent kids for crimes they couldn’t possibly have committed or could they? And stereotyped victimhood is left behind when Sam (Jodie Whittaker), our nurse, becomes a valuable part of the defense.

And then there are those aliens. What do they look like? They’re fast, they have glowing fangs, they can climb anything and they want to kill everything so not as goofy as you might think. The key word here is “efficient.” Larger and more grotesque alien monsters often disappoint: After a few seconds of screen time, all you can think about is how impractical they must be in terms of basic biology. These guys are as low-maintenance as werewolves.

Which raises questions about their civilization level: If these creatures have mastered interstellar travel while lacking opposable thumbs or speech or other conveniences we take for granted in Earth life-forms … well, I guess it’s always possible that this isn’t really them but only their attack dogs. But no, probably not.

Such questions are misplaced. All genres require a motley crew of characters defending the fort/stagecoach/police station/pub/outpost, etc., against savage marauders, while also growing into themselves. It’s a formula we’ve seen before and it never fails in the right hands.

Not only has this movie been well received in Britain, where its writers have expressed concern over whether Americans will understand their characters’ slang; but would the Queen herself be able to? It doesn’t matter. Context is everything, and the language of this place is no harder than that used in “A Clockwork Orange” or “The Warriors.” Do the action and characters work together? Yes. And sometimes it’s even funny too.

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