I am grateful that Oak Street ended.
An American family find their neighbourhood uprooted and surrounded by a prehistoric land. With predatory dinosaurs roaming their backyard, can they survive?
The End of Oak Street is written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. The same David Robert Mitchell that gave us 2014’s incredible horror It Follows. The film stars Anne Hathaway (The Odyssey) Ewan McGregor (The Substance) Maisy Stella, and Christian Convery. It comes after two very strong movies this summer; The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Both of which have a stranglehold on cinemas, with this film garnering the attention of audiences returning to the theatres.
Oh dear. I see the audiences running away again. No, come back, I promise cinema is good! No, please. Come back!
The movie opens in nondescript 1980s suburban America. The Platts are one of several families living here, Denise (Hathaway) and Greg (McGregor, ironically) have two kids Audrey and Brian. They have a so-so existence. A mother and father barely holding it together, a son who is bullied and likes a girl. A daughter who feels remote and different from everyone else. Their neighbours are difficult to live with; increasingly annoyed at their family dog.
But when increasingly strange anomalies shake their world, they must suddenly contend not only with family problems… but literal dinosaurs.
Where to start with this?
Firstly, It Follows was one of my favourite horror movies. How the same man wrote and directed this is beyond me. This feels like someone gave J.J Abrams an original screenplay (it is the Bad Robot production company, at least). But this film is bad. This isn’t going to be a pretty review.
I’m not sure what the film is trying to achieve here. Today’s cinema does seem to pine for 1990s nostalgia. We’ve had Disclosure Day and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, both this year. Which each have this uncanny, old school vibe about them. But the tone here is all messed up. We have some intense family heartbreak; kids trying to deal with their fighting parents. A wife and husband falling out of love. Then we have dinosaurs drinking from paddling pools. Or big piles of poo appearing in someone’s garden.
The ghastly possibility is that they wanted to channel Spielberg. It backfires spectacularly.
The odds are stacked heavily against our family. Their electricity goes out, they have no water, and little to defend themselves. Plus, they are all resoundingly useless. The film bends over backwards to shield our characters from damage, to the point of absurdity. These people should have died almost immediately. When things start to go wrong, it is too late. It is instead really funny.
Take Brian, the most useless boy in the neighbourhood. He has a bow and arrow but cannot shoot the broadside of a barn. He is constantly emasculated for the duration. You would think he would have a hero moment at the end? No, he just eats it really badly and it is unintentionally hilarious. Act one sees him bullied. Does this have any relevance later on? No, except for a really contextually bizarre and absurd follow up that goes nowhere. The emotional heart wants to be there, but it simply didn’t resonate with me at all.
Normally, this is when I switch the review to the positives. But I really struggle to think of any. It is short? We have feathered dinos? (although that one red one in Jurassic World: Dominion was better) Okay, back to the negatives. The film-making is bad. Mitchell seems to have been told to use a “split diopter” effect. Which I didn’t like to begin with. Whenever characters are talking amongst themselves, we have this ghastly split diopter effect, which blurs centre frame to have two focal points (two characters, usually). But it is overused aggressively here. Do we need to have the back of someone’s ear in focus??
(the answer is no)
The CGI isn’t anything to write home about. Jurassic Park from 1993 is still better than this. The score’s non-existent. There’s some tragic forced jump-scares that don’t land. Dinosaurs who apparently make no noise despite being the size of houses. Dinosaurs who have already invaded houses, but the interiors are immaculate. I guess I shouldn’t spoil the ending, but it is the absurd cherry on top of this nonsense cake. What a ridiculous notion.
Unintentionally very funny. The End of Oak Street is one stupid movie. I guess if you want to have a laugh and turn your brain off completely, there are worse ways? But there certainly are better ways.
Additional Marshmallows: Also, director Mitchell, what do you have against cats? Your dog wasn’t even a real dog half the time.