Block Party

I've sometimes wondered if "cult hit" movies can happen as much in this day and age as they used to. The old model for it was a movie that didn't do well in theaters, but then ran endlessly on some cable channel, allowing more people to see it. There's just not a lot of cable channel surfing these days.

Perhaps the most likely scenario for a cult hit today would be a movie unknown at the time that later becomes famous after many of its stars do. That might be the model for Attack the Block, a little-known (at the time) British action-horror-comedy about an alien invasion in a London tower block. Pretty much the only star an American audience could have known when it was released in 2011 was Nick Frost -- and he's in a small role here. But stocks have soared for the two lead performers in the movie.

John Boyega stars as Moses, a teenage gang leader. You know him now from the current Star Wars trilogy. He was just 18 when he made this (and his character is even younger), but he's oozing star charisma all over this movie. This is a far more demanding role than Finn the reformed stormtrooper, calling for pathos, swagger, vulnerability, and menace. And Boyega is excellent.

The other lead character is Samantha, a woman who, after being mugged by a gang, must then ally with them once the aliens invade. She's played by Jodie Whitaker, who went on to Black Mirror and Broadchurch before becoming the 13th Doctor on Doctor Who. This movie is like an audition for all her later work; Whitaker skillfully navigates being snippy and tender, strong and soft, sarcastic and earnest.

Despite these two excellent performances (and some solid supporting ones), this is fairly standard alien invasion material. The setting does help refresh the tropes a bit; "unlikely allies" don't come much unlikelier than this. But all the beats are familiar, right down to the "figure out what the aliens really want" revelation near the end. And the laughs are a bit thinner than I would have hoped for in a comedy action film. Maybe it's just that I expected more from Nick Frost, and instead found the supporting kids to be serving up the better jokes.

It's not an expensive movie, but it does have its share of effective visuals. The design of the creatures is especially neat. Taking to heart the idea that seeing a creature renders it less scary, these aliens are a light-swallowing mass of black fur, highlighted with a glow-in-the-dark set of sharpened fangs. You can't see much of them, but what you do see is scary.

Attack the Block isn't going to become a beloved cult classic for me. But it's a fun enough movie (and quick, at under 90 minutes) to be worth checking out if you haven't seen it. I give it a B.