Review of Attack the Block (2011) by Thiago B — 25 Sep 2014

Brilliant premise ruined by awful characters. The film truly does have a creative and interesting premise, aliens land in a South London council estate. But it's the characters in the film who make the film borderline unwatchable.

The characters consist of a bunch of South London teenagers who come off as incredibly stereotypical. They try and act hard and have the most annoying vocabulary consisting of phrases such as "that is minted" "this is well sick" and "what's up bruv".

They just come off as so annoying which is not helped by them being introduced as a bunch if hooligans mugging a passer by. This makes it impossible to root for the characters and cheer them on. I was honestly hoping the aliens just killed them off and be done with it.

The supporting characters are no better. There is a woman who at first is mugged by the teenagers but ends up helping them later on. There are two younger kids who are friends of the main characters, they just come off as incredibly annoying.

Finally there's Nick Frost and his drug dealing friend. This one pisses me off the most because I love Nick Frost, I think he is hilarious in the Cornetto trilogy directed by Edgar Wright. However here his character is just dull, boring and unfunny.

He is definitely the best character as he isn't annoying but he is just so boring in the film. However there were aspects of the film I loved. The alien creatures were done using practical effects which I adore, they also looked awesome.

The cinematography and visuals were great making the film look very cool and sleek. Unfortunately all this greatness is towered over by the unbearable characters and frustrating dialogue. Overall this film had potential to be brilliant but the characters completely ruin the film for me.