1. It's One Movie Instead of Two
One of the chief problems that plagued Super 8 was that Abrams never successfully fused his two primary narratives -- the aliens and the kids -- into the same movie. Instead, the film lurched back and forth between charming scenes of youthful bonding and clunkily staged alien attacks. Attack the Block, on the other hand, feels all of one piece throughout. The movie opens with its own cast of youngsters -- a crew of hoodlums-in-training led by the stern, sober teen Moses (the absurdly charismatic John Boyega in his feature film debut) -- attempting to relieve a fellow resident (Jodie Whittaker) of their public housing complex (the block of the title) of her wallet. This amateurish mugging is interrupted by a noise up the street; someone or something has fallen from the sky and crash-landed on some poor guy's car, almost smashing it to scrap metal. Moses and his gang walk over to investigate, just as the strange visitor attacks them and runs off into the night. Giving chase, the group tracks it to a small shed and manages to kill it with their handy arsenal of firecrackers. Carrying their new trophy back home, they imagine themselves as conquering heroes... that is, until they look up into the sky and see dozens of these none-too-friendly extraterrestrials dropping to Earth in the heart of their 'hood. The rest of the movie follows Moses and his crew's attempt to protect the block from this alien menace and also depicts their troubled home lives as well as the genuine friendship they end up forming with the woman they attempted to rob in the opening scene. In short, Cornish keeps the threat of the aliens constant while also finding a natural way to service and develop the characters. Unlike Super 8, there's never a sense that these two elements are competing for screentime.

2. The Aliens Are Actually Scary
When making an alien invasion movie, it's a great boon to have lots of money at your disposal. At the same time though, a ready access to cash doesn't automatically guarantee cooler, more memorable creatures. That's certainly been the case with the intergalactic monsters featured in Super 8 and the Abrams-produced Cloverfield, both of which primarily resemble big blobs of CGI with few discernable characteristics. Cornish's more limited budget forces him to get creative with his aliens, who are, in fact, little more than stunt guys running around on all fours in furry suits. But the movie effectively distracts you from the low-fi costumes through clever staging, ferocious attacks and one particularly memorable and frightening detail -- the aliens' mouths glow blue in the dark. Cornish uses this particular aspect of their appearance to great effect. Admit it: if you were standing in a dark hallway and saw a pair of blue fang-filled jaws rushing towards you, you'd be freaked out, too.

3. It Inspires Nostalgia Without Wallowing in It
It's touching that Abrams made Super 8 in large part to honor a director who had a huge influence on his own career. But he went a little overboard on the Spielbergian flourishes, to the point where it distracted from the movie at hand. In its own subtle way, Attack the Block is equally reminiscent of early Spielberg; in fact, the film is tonally more in line with some of the darker, edgier movies that he produced rather than directed -- films like Gremlins, Poltergeist and Young Sherlock Holmes. But Cornish largely avoids referencing any of those films overtly, instead striving to on evoke their same general mood but telling his own distinct story. Perhaps one of the highest compliments I can pay Attack the Block is that it feels like a movie that might have played on a double bill with Gremlins back in the early '80s.

4. There's a Palpable Feeling of Danger and a Refreshing Lack of Cheap Sentiment
Maybe it's just because those Super 8 kids were younger -- Hollywood is generally skittish about incorporating child casualties into summer blockbusters -- but there was never a real sense that Abrams was going to allow them to get hurt or, even worse, killed by the invading alien. In contrast, Cornish establishes early on in Attack the Block that not all of these kids will make it to the end of the movie in one piece. That knowledge introduces heightens the tension considerably. And kudos to Cornish for not milking the fates of the fallen victims for sympathy. Instead, the dead are briefly mourned and then the survivors move on, true soldiers forced to wage a seemingly impossible battle.

5. The Movie Is Just Plain Fun
On the off-chance that I've made Attack the Block sound unrelentingly grim and scary, rest assured that it's a blast to watch, with plenty of humor, rousing action sequences and interesting characters to boot. In a summer where many of the big-budget sci-fi blockbusters (Super 8, Cowboys & Aliens, Green Lantern, the list goes on and on) have disappointed, Attack the Block is a vivid reminder that great things can come from smaller genre movies.

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