This week, I’m taking a trip to The End of Oak Street, which stars Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor as Denise and Greg Platt, a novelist struggling to get her first book published and a pizza delivery driver whose marriage is on the rocks. But the two along with their children Audrey and Brian must soon work together to survive when their neighbourhood of Flowervale is mysteriously moved millions of years back in time and overrun by dinosaurs. As a director, JJ Abrams has become something of a pariah in Hollywood over the last 15 years. His films and TV series used to be consistently able to drum up hype through their intriguing mysteries, but never ended up delivering on their potential because it felt like the mystery boxes he built his career on had far more thought put into them than their resolutions, demonstrated time and time again by Lost, Star Trek Into Darkness and most infamously by the Star Wars sequel trilogy. But it’s while not entirely free of Abrams’ trappings, it manages to be a surprisingly fun, tense and thrilling prehistoric romp.
Jurassic Park Comparrisons
Any dinosaur centric film is naturally going to be compared to Jurassic Park, but The End of Oak Street manages to be better than practically all of its sequels, and in particular fully realises what Jurassic World Dominion should have been by unleashing its titanic terrors into an urban environment with all the chaos that entails. Admittedly, the film does take longer than would be ideal to fully realise its potential due to first having to establish Denise, Greg, their children and the other Flowervale residents, and while it’s not entirely devoid of compelling characterisation it noticeably takes a back seat throughout the brisk 99 minute runtime. Some threads involving Denise’s struggle to be recognised in her profession in the 1980s and Greg feeling unappreciated for precariously balancing multiple jobs to provide for his family have a level of poignancy to them, but others such as Audrey and Brian dealing with local bullies and an eternally grumpy next-door neighbour feel like they’re there purely for adhering to the expected beats of an Amblin production of the era such as E.T. But once the Platts are stranded in the past and beset by Mesozoic monstrosities, David Robert Mitchell goes all in on adrenaline pumping, horrific yet also grounded setpieces which emphasise how truly disastrous T-rex and triceratops would be in an average neighbourhood.
Acting Chops
While the characters they’re playing aren’t exactly deep (something shared by the more recent Jurassic continuations), the performances from Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor give Denise and Greg enough likeability to make them worth rooting for. Even with the carnivorous threat the two are able to give the stakes some emotional weight, with Denise fearing that she’ll go her whole life with her creative ambitions unrecognised and Greg trying to cling on to what remains of their love for each other over his family’s status in Flowervale, their dynamic aided by Maisy Stella and Christian Convery as the children privy to their fracturing marriage.
Overall
Despite its issues, The End of Oak Street is a very welcome return for David Robert Mitchell which will not only satisfy fans waiting nearly a decade for his third film, but also those who want to see dinosaurs on the big screen not tied to a film or franchise which isn’t cynically trying to exploit nostalgia.
4/5 stars
The End of Oak Street movie review was created by Joe Warne, a member of the Sedgemoor fm team since 2017.
Joe specialises in providing weekly reviews of the latest film releases at 6.30pm each Monday evening as part of the Sedgemoor Life Show. Tune in each Monday for more movie reviews