Plus Watch Two Clips From The Film
Alien invasion is very much in vogue at present, with “Battle: Los Angeles” imminently following on the footsteps of “Skyline,” and “Cowboys and Aliens” and “The Darkest Hour” on their way later in the year, among others. But there’s one film we’ve been looking forward to over and above all the others: “Attack the Block,” the directorial debut of British comedian/screenwriter Joe Cornish.
Cornish is a long-time friend of Edgar Wright (he helmed the making-of on the “Shaun of the Dead” DVD), and the pair are writing partners, both on Steven Spielberg‘s “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn,” and on Marvel’s “Ant Man,” but Cornish branched out on his own for this project, which follows the inhabitants of a South London council estate as they battle off an alien invasion.
We’ve been eagerly anticipating the film ever since we took a look at the script last year — it’s less of an outright comedy than “Shaun” or “Hot Fuzz,” although there are still laughs, but it’s closer to something than John Carpenter would have made if he was born and raised in Elephant & Castle. The film’s a month or so away from its UK debut, and will premiere at SXSW in a few weeks, but Empire just premiered the trailer, and it looks like the film will live up to all our hopes.
The clip, which you can watch below, looks gorgeous, has a fair few big laughs, seems set to showcase a whole series of rising stars (other than Nick Frost, “Venus“‘s Jodie Whittaker and “Clash of the Titans“‘s Luke Treadaway, the leads are all newcomers) and has some genuinely impressive action. We kind of love the glimpses of the creature design — closer to a bear than the usual slimy critters we get on the big screen, it’s unique, but still terrifying.
The BBC’s excellent flagship programme “Film 2011” debuted a couple of full clips on the show last night, and Hey U Guys have placed them online, and they again demonstrate why we’re so excited about this one: atmospheric, jumpy and laugh-out loud funny. Jeff Wells may be annoyed by the un-subtitled dialogue, but that’s part of the fun…
The film screened for the first time yesterday, having been completed earlier in the week, and the word from the Twittersphere is that it’s excellent. We’ll hopefully be checking it out for ourselves soon enough: it debuts next Saturday, March 12th, at SXSW, and opens in the UK on May 11th, with a US release date to hopefully follow later in the year. Check out the trailer and clips below.
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