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100Starring a tough-minded band of scrappy teens who actually do some solving, it's the movie "Super 8" wanted to be - or should have been.
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90Boyega is absolutely riveting, leading with a stern glower, and constantly trying to prove himself. Yet Moses has a deep well of tenderness and honor beneath the façade, and Boyega almost single-handedly makes you care not just about his character, but about everyone in any gang that would align itself with him. He's that magnetic.
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90This fabulously inventive debut feature, written and directed by the British comedian Joe Cornish, never flags.
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Jul 26, 201190The smartest, funniest cheap monster-movie import this side of June's "Trollhunter," Attack the Block is a near-perfectly balanced seasonal trifle: Anchored in social realism yet determinedly goofy, it's neither too eager for laughs nor overtly preachy.
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90Cornish's idiomatic dialogue is hilarious and the longtime comic's sense of timing is perfect.
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Aug 25, 201188In the end, police descend on the block at the very moment their presence becomes irrelevant. They misinterpret everything; locals watch as they blame all the wrong people. Soon their flashing lights will drive away, and the block will go back to taking care of itself the best it can.
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88It's hot, fierce, funny, vicious and ready to bite, baby.
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83A terrific midnight movie of the future -- a tough, funny, fast-moving and tightly constructed John Carpenter riff in which a bickering group fights a pack of space monsters in and around a single location.
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83Attack The Block turns its modest budget into a virtue by focusing on character, especially the surprisingly charged, complicated dynamic between enemies-turned-allies Whittaker and Boyega.
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Jul 27, 201183There could be a few more scares and laughs, but it's a blast to be drawn into this urban ecosystem that is, to us Yanks, itself a bit alien.
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80Cornish, like Edgar Wright (who directed "Shaun of the Dead" and was an executive producer here), can parody a genre in a way that revitalizes it, that reminds you why the genre was born in the first place. The movie is in a different galaxy than "Cowboys & Aliens": It has, in both senses, guts.
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80The cast is splendid, the script quick-witted and the action satisfying.
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Jul 28, 201180Pulsing with a rowdy energy, the film works as both a sci-fi horror flick and a teen adventure film.
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Jul 24, 201180There's a vaguely Spielbergian quality to Cornish's skill at balancing the sense of shared adventure with genuine danger.
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Jul 24, 201180Brit comedian-TV presenter Joe Cornish emerges fully formed as an exciting new writer-helmer with his enormously appealing debut feature, Attack the Block.
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78Smart, quick, funny, and economical, Attack the Block is an alien-invasion movie that is a breed apart.
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75The movie is more interested in making viewers consider its disenfranchised protagonists from a fresh perspective. The fact that the film accomplishes this without a trace of gooey sentimentality is a small miracle.
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75What follows is a hilarious, slam-bang series of chases and battles that cross "Gremlins" with "Assault on Precinct 13," the two most prominent of many genre films quoted by Attack the Block.
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75Stacked against this summer's CGI-driven blockbusters, Attack the Block is definitely the fastest action ride (clocking under 90 minutes), and quite possibly the most fun.
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75The picture's finale isn't as smart as it ought to be. Cornish tries to make a damning social statement, but the only thing you take away from the movie is how cool it is to kick alien ass.
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75The movie, which should have been titled "Defend the Block," illustrates once again that zombie, horror and monster movies are a port of entry for new filmmakers. The genre is the star.
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75A brisk blast of bloody good fun, sci-fi with a little social commentary as subtext. Attack the Block is the movie that "Battle: Los Angeles" was not - thrilling, nerve-wracking and fun.
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Jul 24, 201175More "Bloody Kids" than "Super 8," more "Assault on Precinct 13" than "Jumanji," and, in the end, more "Be Kind Rewind" than "Adventures in Babysitting."
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70Attack the Block hovers in that uneasy zone between eager-beaver likability and trying way too hard to be cool, but it captures its gritty setting with unusual affection. Science-fiction buffs seeking a change of pace and fans of British pop culture shouldn't miss it.
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63The movie's amateurishly made. But the script is full of little surprises.
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40This low-budget sci-fi item was produced by some of the Brits who made "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," including their writer and director, Edgar Wright, but it hardly compares, despite Nick Frost's brief appearance as a mangy pot dealer.
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0Attack the Block is the other alien-invasion movie opening today, the lousy one, the one from Britain. In Britain, it's probably just a regular bad movie, but here - with accents that are barely comprehensible and in-jokes about council flats, not to mention a swerving handheld camera and some of the cheapest effects since "Night of the Lepus" - it's surprising this thing ever got released.