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Now playing: THE END OF OAK STREET (2026)
Set in a cursorily bucolic suburban Michigan neighborhood, we're clearly treading on Spielberg territory.
End of Oak Street: Dinner is on the house
THE END OF OAK STREET (2026) / Written & Directed by David Robert Mitchell / Cinematrographer: Mike Gioulakis (2.35:1) / Design: Maya Shimoguchi / Editor: John Axelrad / Composer: Michael Giacchino / Producer: J.J. Abrams / Acted by: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christain Convery, Jordan Alexa Davis, P.J. Byrne and Hudson Meek / Warner Bros. / USA / Rating: PG-13 / Length: 99 min.
To help establish time and place, a 1982 Warner Bros. logo greets us at the outset, followed by mom Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway) snapping a Polaroid photo, and her daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) referencing Carl Sagan’s Cosmos while MTV pumps out Pat Benatar’s "Hit Me With Your Best Shot " Talking of which: writer and director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, Under the Silver Lake) gives this tale of dinosaurs in suburbia his best shot. The result: not as bad as one might fear, but nowhere near as evil-minded as it could (and should) have been.
Video:
Trailer: END OF OAK STREET
It's clear from the cursorily bucolic suburban Michigan neighborhood that we're treading on Spielberg territory. Truth be told, I’ve never seen anything with the word “Jurassic” in its title. I’m there when Steve wears his big boy pants (Schindler’s List, A.I., Amistad), but when the subject matter is geared to kids and adults with kid cravings (War of the Worlds, The BFG, Ready Player One) my all-consuming love of film doesn't waver when I take a hard pass.
Every subplot hinted at during the opening block party will eventually come back into play to one degree of clunkiness or another: Denise and Greg’s (Ewan McGregor, blander than usual) rocky marriage, their son Christian’s (Brian Platt) pending comeuppance at the hands of an older neighborhood bully (Hudson Meek), the impact their “space nut” daughter Audrey’s (Maisy Stella) fanatic devotion to Carl Sagan, etc.
What's different about these dinosaurus wrecks? Unlike last week’s One Night Only, The End of Oak Street actually comes through with a logical explanation for the sudden presence of unfriendly neighborhood sauropsids who spend most of their time ransacking the neighborhood in the name of dinner and territorial instinct. The film also embraces modern paleontology by showing creatures covered in feathers, fur, scales, and realistic hides. And contrary to many indestructible movie monsters, a well placed bullet or two can actually take out one of these behemoths.
On the downside, as juvenile as Spielberg can be, even he wouldn't stoop to littering the neighborhood with backyard coprolite. Nor would he grind the action to a screeching halt to depict a pair of brontosauri doing it doggy style, followed by Dad taking a break from fleeing the carnage to pose for a prehistoric selfie.
What surprised and pleased me most was just how easily the mean-spirited death and defilement was able to catch the audience off guard. The first victim positioned to be a dino-snack doesn't succumb until halfway through the film. And those who found Hathaway woefully miscast in The Odyssey will be treated to a fine turn as a mother trying frantically to put aside her wifely anger and kick into survival mode to protect her children.
Alas, as the ending so sappily illustrates, the film’s one fatal flaw is Mitchell’s desire to have it both ways. Still, if a think-free popcorn picture is what you’re craving, there are worse ways than this to kill a couple of hours.
Rating: **
Here's something you might be interested in.
Now playing: THE END OF OAK STREET (2026)
Set in a cursorily bucolic suburban Michigan neighborhood, we're clearly treading on Spielberg territory.
Now playing: THE END OF OAK STREET (2026)
Set in a cursorily bucolic suburban Michigan neighborhood, we're clearly treading on Spielberg territory.
End of Oak Street: Dinner is on the house
THE END OF OAK STREET (2026) / Written & Directed by David Robert Mitchell / Cinematrographer: Mike Gioulakis (2.35:1) / Design: Maya Shimoguchi / Editor: John Axelrad / Composer: Michael Giacchino / Producer: J.J. Abrams / Acted by: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christain Convery, Jordan Alexa Davis, P.J. Byrne and Hudson Meek / Warner Bros. / USA / Rating: PG-13 / Length: 99 min.
To help establish time and place, a 1982 Warner Bros. logo greets us at the outset, followed by mom Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway) snapping a Polaroid photo, and her daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) referencing Carl Sagan’s Cosmos while MTV pumps out Pat Benatar’s "Hit Me With Your Best Shot " Talking of which: writer and director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, Under the Silver Lake) gives this tale of dinosaurs in suburbia his best shot. The result: not as bad as one might fear, but nowhere near as evil-minded as it could (and should) have been.
Video:
Trailer: END OF OAK STREET
It's clear from the cursorily bucolic suburban Michigan neighborhood that we're treading on Spielberg territory. Truth be told, I’ve never seen anything with the word “Jurassic” in its title. I’m there when Steve wears his big boy pants (Schindler’s List, A.I., Amistad), but when the subject matter is geared to kids and adults with kid cravings (War of the Worlds, The BFG, Ready Player One) my all-consuming love of film doesn't waver when I take a hard pass.
Every subplot hinted at during the opening block party will eventually come back into play to one degree of clunkiness or another: Denise and Greg’s (Ewan McGregor, blander than usual) rocky marriage, their son Christian’s (Brian Platt) pending comeuppance at the hands of an older neighborhood bully (Hudson Meek), the impact their “space nut” daughter Audrey’s (Maisy Stella) fanatic devotion to Carl Sagan, etc.
What's different about these dinosaurus wrecks? Unlike last week’s One Night Only, The End of Oak Street actually comes through with a logical explanation for the sudden presence of unfriendly neighborhood sauropsids who spend most of their time ransacking the neighborhood in the name of dinner and territorial instinct. The film also embraces modern paleontology by showing creatures covered in feathers, fur, scales, and realistic hides. And contrary to many indestructible movie monsters, a well placed bullet or two can actually take out one of these behemoths.
On the downside, as juvenile as Spielberg can be, even he wouldn't stoop to littering the neighborhood with backyard coprolite. Nor would he grind the action to a screeching halt to depict a pair of brontosauri doing it doggy style, followed by Dad taking a break from fleeing the carnage to pose for a prehistoric selfie.
What surprised and pleased me most was just how easily the mean-spirited death and defilement was able to catch the audience off guard. The first victim positioned to be a dino-snack doesn't succumb until halfway through the film. And those who found Hathaway woefully miscast in The Odyssey will be treated to a fine turn as a mother trying frantically to put aside her wifely anger and kick into survival mode to protect her children.
Alas, as the ending so sappily illustrates, the film’s one fatal flaw is Mitchell’s desire to have it both ways. Still, if a think-free popcorn picture is what you’re craving, there are worse ways than this to kill a couple of hours.
Rating: **