Not too long ago, Patrick Willems released a video essay questioning why there aren’t more dinosaur movies. Beyond the Jurassic Park/World franchise, there aren’t as many as you’d think. While the original Jurassic Park is hard to top, most of the sequels have set the bar pretty low. Even when the end of Fallen Kingdom teased an interesting idea with dinosaurs running amok in populated areas, Dominion and Rebirth reverted to the status quo. In many respects, The End of Oak Street is the Jurassic World sequel we’ve been waiting for, seeing a suburban neighborhood clash with dinosaurs. That’s not the only Steven Spielberg production it channels, playing like a prehistoric poltergeist.
It isn’t surprising that one of the film’s producers is J. J. Abrams, who was paying homage to Spielberg before everyone else was. What is a bit surprising is that its writer and director is David Robert Mitchell, who’s a great talent. Yet, you wouldn’t expect him to follow up It Follows and Under the Silver Lake with a CGI-heavy dinosaur flick. At the same time, Mitchell’s knack for suspense is on full display. Much like the entity in It Follows, simply watching a dinosaur approach the characters is enough to make the hairs on our arms raise. When the dinosaur reaches the foreground, Mitchell pushes the PG-13 rating as far as it can go.
Mitchell also creates relatable characters in the Platt family. Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor lead the family as Denise and Greg, respectively. Their children are Christian Convery’s Brian and Maisy Stella’s Audrey, the latter of whom may or may not be gay. Either way, The End of Oak Street handles LGBTQ+ characters better than Fallen Kingdom did. One day, the family is playing limbo at a block party. The next, they find themselves in a literal limbo when the neighborhood is sent back to when dinosaurs walked the earth. These dinosaurs also have feathers, although that doesn’t make them any less intimidating.
The action has a real bite to it, not afraid to put this family in genuinely perilous situations. At one point, it seemed Mitchell might go all the way with the film’s edge. The End of Oak Street doesn’t quite commit, though, ultimately opting for something more crowd-pleasing. Personally, I would’ve preferred a downer finale, but this is also coming from someone who favors the alternate ending to Little Shop of Horrors. The masses aren’t going to share my sick, twisted mindset. Even so, I was invested in these characters, fearing for them throughout.
The dinosaurs are intimidating for the most part, even if some shots look more like CGI than others. From a visual standpoint, the highlight here is the production design, seamlessly merging a 1982 neighborhood with the land that time forgot. While The End of Oak Street plays like an early Amblin Entertainment throwback, it can also resonate with a younger generation who spent nearly a year in lockdown. Watching this family confined to a neighborhood with certain death waiting outside, it’s easy to see a COVID parallel. At the film’s heart is a family drama that forces the Platts to confront the figurative dinosaurs they’ve been keeping buried. It doesn’t break new ground, but it is the freshest dinosaur movie we’ve gotten since the first Jurassic Park.