THE STORY – After a mysterious cosmic event uproots Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to a location with prehistoric creatures, the Platt family soon discovers that their survival depends on sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings.
THE CAST – Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella & Christian Convery
THE TEAM – David Robert Mitchell (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 99 Minutes
For over 30 years, the “Jurassic Park” franchise (which later morphed into the unsteady “Jurassic World” series) has essentially had a monopoly on dinosaur films. Despite the 1993 original being the only good film out of the seven total that have been released, no other films that predominantly feature the prehistoric reptiles have made much of an impact. Filmmaker David Robert Mitchell is here to challenge that with “The End of Oak Street,” which might as well be titled “Jurassic Suburb.” With the help of a sci-fi premise, he brings dinosaurs to our world, or rather, the world of 1982 – notably the release year of two legendary films about an otherworldly presence entering the lives of a normal American family: “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and “Poltergeist.” “The End of Oak Street“ hardly hides this influence, instead inviting audiences to make that connection themselves, transporting viewers both to a different time and to a different era of blockbuster filmmaking. Mitchell’s Spielberg influence is clear in obvious ways – like Michael Giacchino’s excellent score that features John Williams-like boisterous brass and busy string parts- and in less widely apparent ways, like the deliberate lighting and effective pairing of smart blocking and camerawork. It’s a bold artistic choice to so openly invite comparison to Hollywood’s greatest populist, but “The End of Oak Street“ is an exciting, fun, and surprisingly intense adventure that’s the very definition of a crowd-pleaser.
Smartly, the film takes its time revealing what anyone who’s even quickly scrolled past an ad for the movie knows about it. Like a true diva star, the dinos make the audience wait before finally entering. The film’s lengthy expository chapter effectively settles viewers into the Platt household, introducing each of the four family members with enough care, attention, and insight that it feels like crashing on their couch for a weekend. Mother and father Denise (Anne Hathaway) and Greg (Ewan McGregor) are doing a bad job of hiding their marital instability from their two teenagers, Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery). But that’s not all that they’re keeping from their loved ones: Denise spends her evenings in the basement, plugging away at a novel that’s clearly a way for her to process her unspoken desire to run away, while Greg works an assortment of what would later be called “side gigs“ in order to make up for his unstable employment. As most kids were in the pre-cell phone era, Audrey and Brian manage to have their own private lives away from the purview of their parents. While Brian is clearly a good kid, he has a typical rebellious streak which includes smoking cigarettes and, most recently, getting into a violent altercation with his bully. Audrey is more fixated on trying to get out of their small town, hoping to get into Cornell to study the cosmos under the legendary Carl Sagan.
But all these domestic issues have to be put on pause when something amazingly terrifying (and terrifyingly amazing) happens to their neighborhood. After a violent nighttime storm suddenly ends with their power, water, and phones being abruptly shut off, it slowly becomes clear to the Platts that it’s not just their utilities that have been altered. The appearance of extinct prehistoric flora and fauna serves as the first clue that something is not right in the space-time continuum. Mitchell’s eventual reveal of the dinosaurs is brilliantly deliberate; he doesn’t start us out immediately staring into the jaws of a carnivore. Instead, we see a tail here, a claw there, or hear a sound that feels decidedly terrestrial, but not of the twentieth century. Even with the full knowledge of the dino-tastic capers to come, the parsing out of small bits of information and clues as to what exactly is happening on Oak Street is an exciting, titillating method to make viewers feel that they’re making discoveries at the same time as the central family, even if we inherently have more information about their situation than they do. Mitchell’s approach is timeless, using cinematic techniques that have been used for nearly a century, like cleverly obscured imagery and uncanny sound effects. The filmmaker clearly knows the good hand he’s holding, and doesn’t seek to immediately show it to viewers. The best directors know that teasing out facts is better than just dumping them on the audience’s heads, as it inherently builds up suspense and, in this film specifically, leads to breathtaking, thrilling moments once we see the creatures in all their primeval glory.
Is it a bit of a deflation when the dinosaurs aren’t the most immaculately rendered and realized CGI creations? Definitely. As has often been said, there’s really just no beating the combination of selective computer-generated effects with state-of-the-art animatronics and puppets used in the original “Jurassic Park,“ and it’s a shame that three decades later, movies still have trouble living up to the promise of Spielberg’s greatest triumph. But what “The End of Oak Street“ does get right is the designs of the dinosaurs themselves. Appropriately adorned with feathers, scars, and wounds, these giant reptiles are both (as far as this decidedly non-expert is aware) more scientifically accurate and realistically detailed in their appearance than most cinematic dinosaurs. And Mitchell smartly uses specific set pieces to highlight the different types of dinosaurs, giving them all a time to shine in the spotlight in a way that highlights the various threats, quirks, and traits of each species. Some favorites include a comical herd of harmless, giant turtle-like creatures and a sneaky snake who winds through the Platts’ house with the silent dexterity of a cat burglar. For this totally normal family, their experience really feels like just one dino after another.
Don’t be fooled by the PG-13 rating. Mitchell is unsparing (within reason) when it comes to the carnage he captures. Following the bloody shock of his horror breakthrough “It Follows“ and the unabashedly adult content of his last film “Under the Silver Lake,“ the filmmaker doesn’t shy away from crafting imagery intended to make viewers gasp at the audacity of what they’re seeing. The dinosaur attacks are depicted with sudden violence in a way that feels truthful to the circle-of-life brutality of the natural, prehistoric world while serving as delightful heart rate spikes for the audience. One important sequence involving a T-Rex (of course) is particularly nasty and unprecious in how it treats its human characters. But just because people are being eaten the hell up doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with it! Mitchell doesn’t shy away from the humor that comes from the inherent absurdity of this insane scenario, like a Brontosaurus having the best day upon discovering an ice cream truck, or a ridiculous moment where a character makes sure to close the door after exiting a totally destroyed bathroom. Less elegant is the way that petty moments of human drama poke through at the most inopportune times, including marital squabbles and, most frustratingly, the subplot of Brian avoiding the vengeful brother of his injured bully. Yes, these details serve to deepen the relatable nature of the characters, but they can’t help but feel entirely unimportant when they’re within shouting distance of a Stegosaurus.
Luckily, the actors tasked with bringing the Platts to life are all completely committed both to their characters’ situations and to portraying a believable family unit. In her fourth of fifth 2026 releases, Anne Hathaway is, as always, willing to totally go there when it comes to depicting a character at the end of her emotional rope. She starts the movie stressed and just gets stressed-er. With her long black hair, bulging eyes, and penchant for wielding large weapons, she brings to mind the work of Shelley Duvall in “The Shining.“ And just as with that legendary performance, Hathaway’s extreme fear reactions (and most impressively, these were reactions to invisible creatures on the actual set) help sell the terrifying stakes of her situation. Both Christian Convery and Maisy Stella are just as plausibly terrified throughout, with Stella in particular giving her character a welcome sympathetic energy. She’s clearly in over her head, but never backs down from danger (anyone who saw her fantastic turn in “My Old Ass” won’t be surprised). Given the dopey, sometimes-clueless dad role that Ewan McGregor is given, his character’s less urgent nature feels frustrating at parts. But it all leads up to an incredible pay-off, and McGregor feels right at home playing a father who has found himself unwittingly straying from his mission of being a good husband and attentive father.
With “The End of Oak Street,“ David Robert Mitchell constructs a well-crafted, Amblin-esque vision of typical Americans under extraordinary circumstances. Here, it’s willful kids and stressed parents trying to avoid splitting up their split-level, shot with an abundance of split diopters. Mitchell clearly knows what audiences want to see, assembling a thrill ride that even had this “I’ve seen everything“ critic gasping and audibly reacting. And I wasn’t alone in being vocal in my theater: this is a movie elevated by being seen on a big screen with a locked-in crowd. Hopefully, “The End of Oak Street” doesn’t mark the end of its director’s inspiration, as it’s unquestionably his best, most entertaining film yet.
