Attack the Block is SO MUCH FUN I had to use caps to describe it. The folks across the pond have been ripping things up lately and Attack the Block is now one of my favorite movies of the year.

It’s an average night in south London when a group of teens are out running ammock in their neighborhood. From the sky an alien invasion begins, with the group of friends confronting and killing the first visitor. The rest of the night the kids defend the block, and the world, from these not so friendly monsters!

First, the cast of kids rule. Every single one of them is believable and funny. Most of them have little to no credits to their name, but it never shows. John Boyega plays the main character, Moses, and I hope this is just the start of a long career. I was really impressed with his work. Moses is a dick, but he’s fiercely loyal, brave as hell and can admit when he’s wrong. Strong characters are always the best to watch. I can’t recall ever thinking “Don’t do that you idiot!” It avoids a lot of bad horror traps while relishing in great set ups that lead into great moments of suspense. The pace is quick, the direction very sharp and clear. Excellent use of CG, audio cues and camera tricks. It moves a long with a great beginning, middle and end. The movie is just really well made, every dime of the estimated $13 million budget can be seen om screen. I love the creature design that harkens back to a few 80’s creature flicks with a cool modern technical spin. I’d say more but I think seeing them for the first time makes the greatest impact.

Some great set pieces, fantastic and smart uses of gore that I can only sing praise to. So many smart decisions in this movie. I really loved everything about Attack the Block, I wish I helped make it.

It’s always fun to see something new and with the way Hollywood has been working the passed few years, that’s getting harded to get these days. In Time presents us with a world where a life is the currency. Humans are genetically engineered to grow until age 25. At that birthday, your death clock (which is a bio-lumen clock on your left forearm) begins to tick down it’s final year. You can earn more time by working, gambling, taking loans and even stealing from others. It’s a very simple exchange, a slightly modified handshake motion and you can take and give from your own clock. In the case of banks, the time is held in a devise that looks a bit like a bar code reader. Hold it to your wrist and time is taken or given away. Now, once that timer hit zero, you drop dead (sickness and injuries are still a threat). It’s a constant fight for live for most, where “Many must die for a few to live forever,” is the motto of the rich.

In the current economical climate this premise seems all the more fitting. The “top 1%” that is constantly beratted in the headlines these days are well accounted for here. The main character, Will (played by Justin Timberlake) helps someone out who has a lot of time on his hands. He’s gifted more than a century of life, which immediately makes him a target. No one in the ghetto gets that much time with out stealing it, according to those who know “best.” The rest of the movie is an attempt at balancing the scales between the rich and the poor. There’s plenty of money to go around, the rich are just hoarding what they are ultimately stealing.

Timberlake does a fine job, it’s hard not to see him as anything but JT, but a lot of actors have that problem so I can’t really hold that against him. There’s a good cast around him too, I always like Cillian Murphy, Amanda Seyfried makes a great love interest and partner in crime. Very little is explained, no real geographic location is given, no year, how and why the life currency system began (it’s been in effect for around 100 years from what I could put together). That all works for me as the social ramifications are really what is on display here. The threat is always the clock so that made any chase scenes seem a little less daring. There are many times when Will could have and probably should have been shot and killed, but I guess the time he holds through the movie is worth more than a shot to the head.

I liked it for the most part. There’s some silly dialog here and there and the plight of the poor is always the most important. Some fleshing out of the world could have been a plus, but the movie works pretty well as is. I’d call it a good rental.

When I was really into comic books, Thor never looked interesting so I never picked up any of his stories. So going into the movie, I arrived with zero expectations. It’s a fun, if slightly dull movie.

It does everything well. The cast is good, along with the acting. A simple story that gets through the origin of Thor over with quickly. In fact, the movie is really well paced. Thor is a bit of a blow hard at the start and when he’s banished to Earth for his over zealous antics, he goes on a personal transformation. When Earth is threatened by Thor’s own brother, Loki, Thor steps up as Earth’s protector. What action scenes there are, are all done well. Nothing that exciting though, for some reason that feeling stuck with me through the whole movie. I can’t really pin down why, I guess because I don’t really care for Thor. The movie actually made me thing more of him, so in that respect it worked. He’s a part of The Avengers movie that comes out next year, so this is good warm up (rental) to get on board next summer’s tentpole release. Until Batman shows up to embarrass all other super hero movies at least.