The End of Oak Street – Movie Review
Right from the opening moments of David Robert Mitchell’s new dinosaur-adventure flick, The End of Oak Street, there is an atmosphere and aesthetic that feels directly lifted from the movies of the 1980s. A street party plays out on the titular Oak Street, with kids running around, the rocking radio blasting, high-waist jeans for the mums, short stubby shorts for the dads, and a sense of joy and community that feels lost to a bygone era.
But, it’s not just the film’s setting of 1982 that makes it feel like a movie from this time. It’s how Mitchell harnesses what made movies like E.T., The Goonies, and practically anything Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment made during the 80s – movies that are purely exciting and adventurous.
The End of Oak Street is an interesting detour from the filmmaker who brought us It Follows and Under the Silver Lake. But it’s obvious in this film that he has a love and admiration for this style of movie, and he executes it incredibly well in a lean 95-minute thrill ride that doesn’t waste timing setting up the characters, their drama, and the sci-fi situation they find themselves in before providing some truly exciting and terrifying dinosaur action.
The family that is at the centre of this dinosaur escapade are the Platt’s, including parents Denise (Anne Hathaway), Greg (Ewan McGregor), Audrey (Maisy Stella), and Brian (Christian Convery). Their middle-class suburban existence is pretty standard on the surface – they have a home and they have each other, God Bless America. However, familial tension brews behind closed doors as Denise, an aspiring writer hiding her talents from her husband, struggles keeping her dream dormant while being a mother and wife. While Greg begins to take extra-time work as a pizza delivery driver under the guise of earning more money for the family, but using his time away from the family to destress and sneak in a little liquid courage on the side.
Meanwhile, Audrey is feeling the nerves of embarking on her next adventure as she approaches her college years, and Brian is currently the target of a neighbourhood bully. But, the family must put aside their issues and quarrels when suddenly in the middle of the night, their neighbourhood block is mysteriously transported back in time, where the biggest threat to their lives is dinosaurs. It sounds like a wild episode of The Twilight Zone, and that’s exactly what makes The End of Oak Street so fun – it’s a contained adventure that doesn’t need to over explain any of the science-fiction to make sense. The family has gone back in time, and they have to survive dangerous dinosaurs. Deal with it for 95 minutes.
For the first 25 minutes of this film, Mitchell does a decent job of giving the audience just enough character detail and dramatic exposition to care about the Platt family by the time the action begins, and he manages to weave aspects of their personal dramas into the encounters that unravel throughout the film. The depth of the drama isn’t necessarily one of the film’s standout elements, but it also doesn’t unnecessarily bog down the story, making The End of Oak Street feel very lean and fast paced.
Within the characters themselves, the performances are where the film slightly wavers. The kids, both the Platt’s and the other kids who come in and out of this survival story, all give performances that have that over-the-top, 80s child actor vibe to them, which does work for this film. There’s lots of pre-pubescent screaming and yelling, droppings of the S-bomb, and very period accurate teenage complaints. It works for the film, but it’s also the type of acting that would get criticised in a more contemporary movie. Ewan McGregor also harnesses the 80s energy with a cheesy dad performance that ebbs and flows between sincere and zany. His wide-eyed, high-pitched voice screams every movie dad that appeared in an Amblin film.
But, it’s Anne Hathaway who gives a far more grounded, emotional-powerhouse performance, especially during the more emotionally tense moments, that definitely isn’t bad acting, but tonal clashes with what McGregor and the kids are doing. There are absolutely scenes where the shotgun-wielding Denise fits the 80s adventure mould perfectly, but when her serious approach to emotion clashes with the heightened, almost stylised expressions from everyone else, it sticks out.
Where The End of Oak Street shines is anytime there is a dinosaur on screen, and there is a lot of dino-action to be seen. At first, Mitchell shows restraint in showing the beasts, often letting them hide in the trees and shadows, building the tension and mystery around what is to come. Once the action kicks off after that 25-30 minute mark, it’s practically non-stop, adrenaline fuelled terror that escalates from encounters with slower, smaller prehistoric creatures to full-blown chases from the iconic T-Rex and terrifying pterodactyls.
The set-pieces are wonderfully constructed by balancing the pure, fun adventure feeling with the sheer brutality that dinosaurs can inflict on humans. Mitchell manages to maintain a level of violence that doesn’t bleed into R-rated territory, but he manages to toe that line so finely that the violence is effective.
Mitchell also uses a few scenes to throw back to his horror roots, specifically a scene involving a gigantic snake that secretly slithers its way around a house, unbeknownst to its occupants. Along with some solid CGI and dynamic direction to exacerbate the action and slither of horror, The End of Oak Street delivers some of the best dinosaur action since the original Jurassic Park.
And like that aforementioned inspiration, all of the parts – the 80s vibe, the exciting set pieces, the humour, the excitement, the adventure – result in a movie that is a pure thrill ride, best enjoyed with a crowd and a big cinema screen. Even with a few noticeable flaws under the surface, The End of Oak Street delivers on its promised premise of lean, thrilling dinosaur action.
The End of Oak Street is in Australian cinemas August 13
