The director of It Follows teams up with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andy Sachs to face off against dinosaurs? Seldom is there ever a film with a hook as alluring as The End of Oak Street.
From producer J.J. Abrams, The End of Oak Street stars Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor as Denise and Greg Platt, a married couple whose family is uprooted when a cosmic event transports their suburban neighborhood into an unrecognizable realm filled with dinosaurs.
Mere milliseconds after director David Robert Mitchell’s film starts and the Warner Bros. Pictures logo graces the screen, the audience’s ears are welcomed by a score from acclaimed composer Michael Giacchino, clearly and unabashedly inspired by the works of John Williams. Very quickly, the Williams-inspired musical cues set the stage for a movie that, from the beginning to the moment the credits roll, is imbued in every sense of the word with Amblin, Spielbergian sense of wonder.
The Midwestern suburban setting, taking place in 1982, and complicated family dynamics further make The End of Oak Street feel like a film out of time, much like McGregor and Hathaway’s characters. Although not encroaching upon the quality of the likes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goonies, or E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Mitchell’s film (minus some of the visual effects) would not feel out of place had it been released in the mid 80s amongst numerous other Amblin hits, such are the stylistic, aesthetic, and thematic parallels to the aforementioned movies.
Where The End of Oak Street diverges from the films it is so clearly inspired by is its pacing and emotional resonance. Regarding the former, Mitchell’s film takes far too long to get going and actualize the premise of dinosaurs terrorizing suburbia. When things do kick into gear, the story stutters along, frequently taking extended reprieves from the intensity that give the film a rather stop-start quality.
These reprieves would be more bearable if they were dedicated to interesting character dynamics and arcs, but both are distinctly lacking. The first scenes of the movie orient the audience to the strained marriage of the characters played by McGregor and Hathaway. McGregor’s Greg has an avoidant, ‘everything will be okay’ way of coping with challenges, while Hathaway’s Denise is far more proactive and problem-solving.
Coupled with Greg’s hidden swigs of alcohol and troubles at work that mean he has to deliver pizzas on the side, the juxtaposing philosophies of the married couple at the heart of the film lays the foundation for some potentially fascinating conversations about how to navigate parenthood amidst an inconceivable battle for survival. Unfortunately, such conversations play out in such a dull manner and occur so sporadically that there is little depth afforded to the movie’s key relationship.
Difficulties developing the characters continue as Greg and Denise’s two children are provided paper-thin material to work with and given the slimmest and most uninteresting of arcs to navigate. Yes, The End of Oak Street is a movie about dinosaurs invading a suburban neighborhood, much like how Jurassic Park is a movie about dinosaurs running loose in an amusement park.
But Spielberg’s 1993 classic didn’t just work because of its spectacle and inventive premise -- it worked because the characters were vibrant, authentic, unique, and exceedingly easy to root for. Mitchell’s film woefully misses the mark in this regard.
Despite erring in giving its characters and the story the emotional depth of Amblin classics, The End of Oak Street ultimately lives up to its premise thanks to expert craftsmanship from Mitchell. It should be no surprise that the filmmaker who masterminded It Follows knows how to shoot a film, but Mitchell’s first movie in eight years is a stark reminder of the skill the Michigan native possesses.
Mitchell’s approach to the dinosaurs amplifies an already intense dilemma for the Platt family to navigate. Rather than position the prehistoric creatures front-and-center and render them the main characters of the film, Mitchell intelligently keeps the dinosaurs in the background, often in the corner of the frame and out of focus. In doing so, the film exceeds in the way most creature features do -- not by showing the creatures every second, but keeping them in the background, only to employ in the most calculated of manners to maximize dread and tension.
As Mitchell moves the dinosaurs from the periphery into the center of the frame, he does so within a number of intense, well-crafted set-pieces. Admittedly, most of these set-pieces rely on one of two things: either a dinosaur creeping up behind our characters without them noticing or characters quietly trying to avoid detection from dinosaurs nearby. But despite the conceptual repetitiveness of these set-pieces, each and every one plays extraordinarily well and gives the film a real ‘grab onto the edge of your seat and don’t let go’ quality.
The End of Oak Street also packs a number of moments destined to generate audible reactions from moviegoers. One of these is the kind of fist-pumping, tear-welling, crowd-pleasing moment people go to the movies for, while the other comes as such a shock it will be difficult for most to refrain from an audible gasp.
Given the inventiveness of its premise and talent involved in front of and behind the camera, The End of Oak Street probably should be better than it is. However, despite issues with pacing and developing characters, what the film does well it does exceedingly well.
Evoking an Amblin sense of wonder from start to finish, Mitchell’s film overwhelmingly delivers with the actualization of its brilliant premise and unmistakably Spielbergian atmosphere.
The film opens Friday, August 14, only in movie theaters, via Warner Bros. Visit their officlal site for locations and showtimes.