There’s a certain fun style in the films of the Edgar Wright/Nira Park films that’s continued in Wright/Park pal Joe Cornish’s debut here. They are acutely aware of genre films, like zombies (Shaun of the Dead) and Hollywood action films (Hot Fuzz), but they populate those films with people that seem mis-cast for it. The lazy Shaun fighting zombies at the pub, or the super-vigilant Sergeant Angel confined to a small English town, aren’t the stars that a true zombie/action film need. However, the film itself still follows all the rules the genre demands. The unique comedy is how the two things fail to mesh - a self-awareness that’s clever but doesn’t fail to deliver the promises of that genre.
As I said, Cornish has long been a part of this team, and with his directorial debut he too picks an established, over-the-top Hollywood genre and populates it with the ‘wrong’ cast. Aliens invade a residential high-rise in South London, populated by tough teenage hoodies. Cornish delivers the needs of the genre: cool looking aliens, proper amounts of gore, eerie set-pieces and jump scenes. But the teens - puffed up though they may normally be, ruling their streets - are in over their heads. There’s the heightened need to survive, combined with the normal things teens worry about, and there’s the fun. Alien crashing down the door, and one kid needs to send a message to alert his friends. But he only has one text left on his phone, he’ll get in trouble if he goes over his limit, and “it’s too much madness for one text!”
Cornish’s directorial style doesn’t have the visual flair and fluidity that Wright has in spades, and I won’t lie that I think Attack the Block might have been better than it ended up. But it’s a damn fun time, clever from the start. It’s almost like we have a second Edgar Wright (in-training), which is more than fine by me.
