{"id":4026,"date":"2012-01-05T14:47:49","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T19:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4026"},"modified":"2014-12-01T04:15:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-01T09:15:41","slug":"br-attack-the-block-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4026","title":{"rendered":"BR: Attack the Block (2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Film: Excellent\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: \u00a0n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: Sony\/ Region: A \/\u00a0Released: October 25, 2011<\/p>\n

Genre: Science-Fiction \/ Horror \/ Black Comedy<\/p>\n

Synopsis: A punk gang and student nurse defend their low-rent apartment block from hairy, fanged aliens.<\/p>\n

Special Features: \u00a0n\/a<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Review:<\/p>\n

Rooted in the classic eighties family-friendly shockers where kids and teens band together to fight weird aliens or creatures without the aid of adults, Joe Cornish\u2019s reworking of the formula has a teen gang becoming the heroes of humanity when they manage to stop black hairy monsters with super-human strength and neon-green fangs from massacring everything in their paths.<\/p>\n

While the premise is straightforward \u2013 a weird alien invasion in the suburbs \u2013 Cornish\u2019s setting isn\u2019t, and neither is the methods of introducing the hero & heroine: nursing student Sam (Jodie Whittaker) is robbed by punk kids on the way home, and further earns the ire of the gang (all of whom live in the same low-rent apartment block) when the leader Moses (John Boyega) is arrested and tossed into a police wagon. Of course, it\u2019s during that small moment of personal satisfaction that the creatures attack, eviscerate the cops, and cause both victim and aggressor to band together when their entire neighborhood\u2019s overrun by the apish creatures who seem to want nothing more to do than tear people to bits.<\/p>\n

Woven into the character fabric is a loutish drug lord, and an easygoing drug dealer (Shaun of the Dead<\/strong>\u2019s Nick Frost) whose grow-op becomes the epicenter of the penultimate battle between humans and monsters. Among the kids who make up Moses\u2019 little gang are Pest, Hi-Hatz, Mayhem, and Probs \u2013 each character perfectly cast with young actors unique in dialogue delivery, accent, size, and facial features; they\u2019re essentially realistic kids with attitude and humour that ensures they remain memorable when Cornish has his monsters tear a few to pieces onscreen \u2013 perhaps the film\u2019s biggest diversion from the PG-rated eighties fodder. Kids and adults die, and it\u2019s fast & nasty \u2013 quite a contrarian element considering the BBFC\u2019s once-vicious anti-violence stance, which mandated a film be shorn of its edginess to protect the accidental viewing by kiddies during the infamous Video Nasty<\/a> era.<\/p>\n

Cornish\u2019s storytelling style is fast and no-nonsense (hence the film\u2019s short running time), and Attack<\/strong> features some of the finest hand-held camerawork and editing in recent years. Characters run, dash, leap, and land with great energy, and the film\u2019s camera operator captures every movement without error. There isn\u2019t an ill-framed shot in the film, and the action scenes are brilliantly assembled, conveying dynamic momentum without flashiness and discontinuity. (As a teaching tool on how to cut action, Attack<\/strong> is among the best.)<\/p>\n

The reason for the creature\u2019s sudden landing \u2013 as fiery meteors from the sky \u2013 and intuitive convergence on the apartment block is clean and simple, but it\u2019s the MacGuffin<\/a> hook around which Cornish builds up his roster of unlikely heroes and heroines, using smart dialogue and humour laced with stark urban attitude.<\/p>\n

Cornish\u2019s mini-homage (with serious nods to Walter Hill\u2019s own work, particularly his nineties mini-masterpiece Trespass<\/strong>) is nicely housed in an extras-heavy Blu-ray, including three audio commentary tracks and standard making-of featurettes (of which the longest runs just over an hour).<\/p>\n

Perhaps over-previewed prior to its North American general release \u2013 Sony offered 3-4 rounds of pre-release screenings a month prior to its Canadian release date \u2013 Attack<\/strong> should find its core audience on home video, who\u2019ll savour Cornish\u2019s unusual re-setting of genre conventions in a fairly bleak urban wasteland.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Official Website<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazon Links & KQEK.com’s Media Store:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a> —– Amazon.com<\/a> —– Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Film: Excellent\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: \u00a0n\/a Label: Sony\/ Region: A \/\u00a0Released: October 25, 2011 Genre: Science-Fiction \/ Horror \/ Black Comedy Synopsis: A punk gang and student nurse defend their low-rent apartment block from hairy, fanged aliens. Special Features: \u00a0n\/a \u00a0 \u00a0 Review: Rooted in the classic eighties family-friendly shockers where kids and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[972,971],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-12W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4026"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10201,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4026\/revisions\/10201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}