Battlefield: Brixton

Cine Review: ATTACK THE BLOCK
15 – 87mins – 2011
Written by: Joe Cornish
Directed by: Joe Cornish
Starring: John Boyega, Jodie Whittacker, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway, Paige Meade, Danielle Vitalis, Nick Frost
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Newport-based rap outfit Goldie Lookin’ Chain must be brap, brap, brapping themselves stupid right about now. If only they had sung: “Guns don’t kill people, giant gorilla alien-things do”, their 2004 spoof megahit would have been an absolute shoe-in for the gangsta rap soundtrack to this genre-blending council estate sci-fi mash-up which. You get me?

Injecting the gritty realism of lower class city life with a triple shot of smugness, humour and blazin' honour, South London ’s concrete jungle plays hosts to a gang war on an intergalactic scale as the subhuman chavvie homeboys of “The Block” take on nonhuman invaders to their patch.

The stereotypes are out in full force as the ASBO delinquents tool up with all manner of switchblades, baseball bats and fireworks to fend off the black-furred, neon-fanged ET’s on this fateful Bonfire Night after gang leader Moses (Boyega) arrogantly decides to kill one of the meteor-carried “tings” in the name of pride. Big mistake, bruv.

Written and directed by Brit comic and feature film debutant Joe Cornish of Adam and Joe Show renown, Attack the Block is a meteor storm of culture-cussing comedy, explosive action, gross-out horror and creature-feature science fiction. Yet, the myriad of juxtaposing elements never feel out of whack and the cocktail concept never feels bloated. To Cornish’s credit: it works.

An obvious comparison would be to Anglo zom-com Shaun of the Dead (even more pertinent an association because both films share producers and star Nick Frost), but Attack lacks Shaun’s cosy charm, given the thuggish depravity of its main spliff-smoking, slang-spouting brats, who are introduced to us mugging student nurse Sam (Whittaker), taking her on 5:1. Ras-pect? Jog on, boys.

As their bluster bombs in the face of real danger, you will begin to warm to our posse of inner-city anti-heroes, as they team up with a reluctant Sam to fight the gremlins and evade the “Feds” (that’s the police to you and I) in between checking in with their curfew-administering ‘rents. The disparity between their public and private image is the source of much humour, particularly with two nine year old pipsqueaks who are desperate to join the adventure, arming themselves with cap guns, super-soakers and the laughably portentous pseudonyms “Props” and “Mayhem”.

As is often the case, the trailer all-too-successfully provides a snapshot clip show of the film’s funniest lines (“I just want to go home, lock my door, and play FIFA”), but at just under 90mins, Attack the Block never outstays its welcome, and most importantly never bores with its unrepentant onslaught. Nick Frost is criminally underused as pot-farming waster Ron, but the kidz are the real star of this show, even if you’ll leave the cinema still thinking they’re from another planet.


In a CR@B Shell: You’ll have initial trouble sympathising with the mouthy little shits, but you can’t deny their doggedness. Likewise, if you stick with Joe Cornish’s debut, you won’t be able to deny Attack isn’t a Block-busting tour de force which manages to be both great fun and bloody fierce entertainment. Boyakasha!
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Rude Slob and the Dweebs

Cine Review: PAUL
15 – 104mins – 2011
Written by: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost
Directed by: Gregg Mottola
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogan (voice), Kristen Wiig, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio, Blythe Danner, Sigourney Weaver, John Carroll Lynch, David Koechner, Jesse Plemons, Jeffrey Tambor
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Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are geeks. Big time geeks. And proud of it. They’ve never been afraid to wear their obsessions and influences on their branded T-shirts and pack their screenplays full of more nods and winks than a Paul W. S. Anderson cliché-fest (see HERE), but without alienating – oooh, I made a funny – the cool kids. I know all too well I’m not one of those fly boys, because I was chuckling away at even the most trivial sci-fi references in their latest comedy romp Paul.

Paul is an alien. He looks just like you’d expect an alien to look: large domed head, bug eyes, a gap where a nose should be and a frail grey body. But what you may not expect is that Paul is a rude, English-speaking stoner with a penchant for bad language. Despite playing an alien, Seth Rogen voices the extra tourettes-rial with little adjustment to his usual loutish, lazy persona. It takes some time for this incongruity between voice and character to sit comfortably, but once it does you’ll be giggling away like you’ve shared a toke yourself.

The Shaun of the Dead duo play Graeme and Clive, two genre-obsessed BFF’s who follow up a trip to the San Diego Comic Con with a road trip around America ’s most illustrious alien hot spots. Witnessing a late night car crash, the pair investigates to make sure the driver is uninjured, and it is here they pick up a third buddy who quickly invades their space (I’m on fire today!!) and joins their cross country campervan excursion.

You see, Paul has escaped from Area 51 after 60 years of scientific examinations and helping influence some of the film industries biggest names with realistic Martian storylines (this inspires a hilarious flash back to an early ‘80s phone conversation between Paul and a certain Steven Spielberg, who needs some help with a little project called ET). But now the little grey man has out-lasted his usefulness to the government, and he eschews their plan to dissect his brain by doing a runner.

Now the trio of social outcasts have a host of special agents (Bateman, playing against type), less-than-special agents (Hader and Truglio), homophobic truckers (Koechner and Plemons) and the disgruntled daddy (Carroll Lynch) of a Christian gal (Wiig) they inadvertently kidnapped on their tail as they attempt to get Paul to the pick-up point where his mothership will come to collect him.

The in-jokes are fast and furious (“Boring conversation anyway”, “Where we’re going you won’t need… teeth”), the humour laddishly dumb, and Pegg and Frost rely far too heavily on childish amalgamated profanities to get cheap giggles, and yet Paul works. Even if you don’t know that the line “Get away from her you bitch” is ripped straight out of Aliens, you do know that “The Big Guy” (Weaver) played the iconic Ripley (right?!), and Paul is such a light, carefree and relentlessly silly caper that you’ll find something to chuckle over, regardless of your geek credentials.


In a CR@B Shell: It’s Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind as Pegg and Frost do America – and a fair bit of idol worship – in this Spaced-out road trip which revels in its genre’s obsessiveness but doesn’t kick mainstream comedy fans to the kerb.
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Love Hurts (and then you Replay)

Cine Review: SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
12A – 112mins – 2010
Written by: Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright
Based on the Oni Press graphic novel series by: Bryan Lee O’Malley
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Ellen Wong, Johnny Simmons, Alison Pill, Mark Webber, Anna Kendrick, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman
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Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic book adventures of geeky everyman Scott Pilgrim definitely only appeal to a niche audience. Prior to Edgar Hot Fuzz Wright announcing this big screen adaptation, I would guesstimate that even 90% of X-Men aficionados would have drawn a blank at the luckless adventures of the 20-something “Sex Bob-Omb” guitarist.

But then production of this “epic film of epic epicness” has hardly been a closely-guarded secret, and as hype reached fever pitch, so did the anticipation from an ever-growing fanbase. In the weeks leading up to release, it was near-impossible to surf the net without happening upon an exclusive titbit of info, a new poster, interview or a pop-up streaming the trailer. The marketing machine really can’t be faulted: Scott Pilgrim is now a household name. The problem is that anybody who has seen the trailer already knows precisely what to expect on the big screen.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World essentially is a feature-length extension of the microcosmic teaser; 112 minutes of flashy, hyper-stylised anime and video game in-jokes as weedy and unremarkable Scott (Michael Cera; perfectly cast) has to defeat the league of seven evil exes to win the heart of the crazy-haired, rollerblading girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead; indie cute).

That is it as far as plot goes – it isn’t even totally clear exactly why Scott has to fight his way to victory in a series of Street Fighter style beat ‘em ups – and you’ll know as soon as you see the 8-bit, midi-tone downgrade of the opening Universal logo whether the film is going to hit your buttons or not. Much like the comic, SPvTW is very much a niche film.

It’s funky and fun – at least for the first 45 minutes – but the stage-by-stage structuring means you are consciously aware of how far through the film you are, and if I’m totally honest, things started to drag a smidge after the fourth “level” kung-fu duel. There are only so many opponents exploding into coins and Final Fantasy-riffing dragon battles you can take before ‘novel’ becomes… samey.

Sure, the CGI is faultless and the humour spunky, but every shot is so busy (every onomatopoeic sound effect is visualised, there’s a pee-bar which depletes when Scott urinates, etcetera) that you soon realise that the film works better in its quieter moments of character interaction. When Brandon Routh’s utterly hideous psychic vegan shows up and starts hitting girls (‘cos he’s a rocker!!!), you start to crave a bit of restraint.

This again highlights another issue which will jar with some (more grounded) viewers: Scott Pilgrim is not set in our world, but its own tweaked hyper-reality where barely anybody raises an eyebrow at a film star (Chris Evans; delightfully cocky) catapulting a kid into a castle wall, or a punk (Satya Bhabha; kooky) dancing in the air with a bevy of demon hipster chicks. This deviance of logic takes the whimsical eccentricities from out of Scott’s mindframe and alters your perception of what is sincere and what matters: even when Scott “dies” you know he’s got another “life” so you barely register any emotion.

Even when Shaun was smacking zombies with a cricket bat you were still 100% behind the lovable loser, but in rising up to the next level in filmmaking (Hollywood), Edgar Wright has gone all out to impress: he’s clearly an idiosyncratic auteur bursting with audacious ideas of which he is passionate, but if he isn’t careful he’ll bury the heart which made us back Shaun beneath an abundance of gimmicky quirks and pixels. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is by no means a failure (hell, I was sniggering along with the best of them) but it’s clear why this contemporary geek-out hasn’t clicked with audiences the way the money-men expected.


CR@B Verdict: Destined to find its place as a cult hit, Scott Pilgrim is an extreme n’ relentless “ka-pow!” to the senses. A 5* film for the Gameboy generation, but everyone over 35 will be left in need of a power-up and an aspirin.
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