Attack the Block
User Score
7.1 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 117 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 92 out of 117
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 117
  3. Negative: 11 out of 117

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  1. LamontRaymond
    Aug 10, 2011
    2
    Joe Cornish makes a fundamental blunder with the story that cripples the movie before it really gets going. You don't allow your lead character - your hero - to band together with his young masked male friends, to surround a terrified nurse, and then threaten her with a knife until she surrenders her bag, her ring, etc. TARP (the average reasonable person) probably ancipated a rape. Joe must not have a mother, sisters or female friends he cares a whip about. It's a little tough for the lead character to redeem himself in the eyes of the audience after an opening act like that. Even when the same youngster (Moses) forces himself into the young lady's flat to flee the aliens, he never gives the lady a choice but help his buddy. He later semi-apologizes to her, saying he did it because he didn't know she was "from the block." Yes, he would have robbed her of her dignity with a clear head if she was from the next block. It was interesting that I saw this film a couple of nights after the London riots began because the youngsters from this film looked a lot like the rascals looting and burning the stores around that great city. In this context, and thinking about my own sister and mother, I just couldn't find myself so easy to forgive Moses and his pals for their crimes againt the young nurse. Beyond this fundamental problem, the movie is just not all that funny, and the aliens are not all that scary. Sorry, Joe. Try again.… Expand
  2. phillyjeff
    May 15, 2012
    4
    I wanted the whole gang to DIE, the only character i wanted to survive was the nurse. Stupid thug kids and their stupid British accents. I could not understand a single word they were saying.
  3. HighwayUK
    Sep 5, 2011
    4
    I had high hopes for this but having now watched it, all I can say is this is terrible... at no point did I find the characters funny, nor are they likeable in any way, I spent the whole movie wishing the stupid like **** gang thugs would be ripped apart before the end... Had this been set in America with real gangs it might have worked, but dumb ass kid wannabes with brixton accents trying too hard to sound black is a big NO NO.… Expand
  4. Halfwelshman
    Oct 30, 2011
    4
    I was a little disappointed with Attack the Block. The film had so much hype in the lead up to release, perhaps my high expectations would never be met. There's plenty of action and the odd good joke, but I do have issues with the film. I know it's only a low-budget British sci-fi, but the aliens are really rubbish. They're just big shadows with luminous teeth, and aren't scary in the least. Surely you could have had a monster that is only ever glimpsed, leaving the audience to their own imagination, which is always infinitely more scary? As it is, Attack the Block relies on cheap jumpy moments and a liberal splatter of gore to provide its moments of horror. My main issue with the film though, is the explicitly white, middle-class view of inner city street gangs. You can almost see the checklist the filmmakers followed when writing the gang (made up largely of tabloid snippets) - hoods: check, silly little bikes: check, liberal use of "innit": check. The gang borders on Catherine Tate levels of parody, and consequently the characters can never be particularly believable or engaging, no matter how good some of the young actors involved are. And why on earth is Nick Frost in the film? We know you've got the producer of Shaun of the Dead on board, but are you trying to fool us into thinking that the film is going to be in the same league by pretending you're part of the Wright-Pegg-Frost brand? The director Joe Cornish could very possibly be an interesting filmmaker in future, but as a debut, Attack the Block is competent, but nothing special.… Expand
  5. dunneemagoo
    Nov 16, 2011
    1
    The plot was boring, the actors were talentless, and the language used was forced and cringe worthy. The only thing this film would have had going for it would have been humour. I didn't laugh once. Awful.
  6. RobinsNest
    Feb 9, 2012
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Let's be clear, this film is unintelligible. Even with subtitles I had no idea what they meant. I must be out of touch with 15 year olds, a new language is being taught in school (or online) or the culture just has dialects that are foreign to me. There is also one fatal flaw: the hero is a bad guy. He starts out with his gang surrounding a woman in (on?) the "block", robs her and may be just a heartbeat away from doing worse. As the film progresses from I'll do anything I can to be bad, make money or be anti-establishment, to reluctantly taking in his actual victim to some kind of admiration for this kid, I'm supposed to rally behind him? He's still a bad guy and most likely will continue the same behavior. We have the same inept government people not knowing what is going on, focusing on the kids and not the real cause of the mayhem-the aliens. Their is a goofy premise which surfaces in many of these types of films, and the alien effects are less than average. Having said all that I liked the way it was directed and there are some interesting male characters, save our heroine the other girls are depicted as airheads. The pacing was very good and I got involved in the chase and how it was going to get resolved. But with the two issues from above, I do not recommend it (C-).… Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
75 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 27
  3. Negative: 1 out of 27
  1. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: M. E. Russell
    Sep 8, 2011
    83
    A 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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  2. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    Sep 1, 2011
    75
    The 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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  3. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: John DeFore
    Aug 25, 2011
    88
    In 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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