Attack the Block review

Attack the block is about a gang of kids who try to protect their apartment block, in south London, from savage aliens

I thought that the idea and plot of the film was quite interesting, crossing an alien with a gang of kids sounded like a funny combination. I thought that the idea was quite unique as in other films that involve aliens on earth there are always the predictable saviours as the army and other big organisations protect the world from aliens. Whereas with in this film I thought that it was good as the gang were unlikely heroes. The area in which they were bought up in was quite poor and ruff so to speak, from an early on in the film you could see that they were committing crimes, as they mugged the women, so I thought that it was a good idea as the heroes are normal kids living in an apartment block in south London. The film is set in an apartment block in South London, I thought that it was affective as it was simple and not over the top it just worked well. I thought that the film was typically British, the scene in which it was set and the actions that the boys did and said just made the film flow.

The film was funny in places without really doing too much. I thought that some of the lines that were dropped were quite funny and it didn’t feel like they were trying to force it. Although I don’t think that the lines came often enough, it lacked the comedy throughout, I thought that when the lines were in there I thought that it was funny but they were a rarity in this film. If they were to add more comedy in to the film I think that it would be more enjoyable to watch.

As the film is a sci-fi, I thought that there might be more scary things going on. The film was made on a low budget and I think that what they have done is great considering that and the amount of money is spent on other things, but I think that they needed to try harder to scare/intimidate the audience. For me the aliens never seemed real, they lacked detail, and the ‘scare factor’. I thought that more could have been done to try and scare the audience and even intimidate the audience, at no point did I believe that they were genuinely scared of the aliens, they just treated them like angry dogs. I think that if the characters believe that they are real it makes the audience feel it as well as we play off their emotions. I didn’t think that they tried hard enough to scare the audience or even intimidate them, it was almost like they didn’t want to put too much into it to make it scary but they didn’t put enough comedy in it either in my opinion.

I also thought that there was a lack of emotion running throughout, aliens have landed on the planet and the first thing that they do is attack it, it is not a normal first response. But also two of the members of the gang were killed, they were all friends and nobody really seemed bothered by it, the deaths happened they were never thought of again, the police didn’t even question anybody about deaths. There might have not wanted to talk about it as they were sacred of the aliens but from the expressions and actions you couldn’t tell that they were bothered about either of them.

I think that the film was trying to do too many things and missed out on the simple things. I get the impression that they didn’t quite know what they wanted to do with the film, as I have already said the film was funny in places but I thought that more could have been done to ensure that it was funnier and made the audience laugh more. Although I thought that the lines that were in the film were effective and worked really well, I just needed more of comedy to really enjoy the film. I had the same kind of opinion for the sci-fi part of the film, I thought that they didn’t do enough to get people to be scared by the film, it wasn’t intimidating at all and I thought that the aliens looked like puppets. Even if the aliens were kept the same I thought that there could have been more points in which it could have made the audience jump or even feel intimidated by what was on the screen. It tried to be two things; I thought that they could have maybe gone with a full sci-fi film and maybe add in a few bits of comedy to lighten the mood. Or make the film a comedy and add some scary bits in as well to maybe throw the audience a bit and make them really interact with the film and feel like it was real.

To conclude I thought that the film was good as it was a unique story line and it did make me laugh in some places but I think that the writers needed to think what film they wanted as they kind of got stuck in between not offering enough of each genre to make it a really good film.