‘The End Of Oak Street’ Review – Adrenaline Fueled Blockbuster Is The Best Dinosaurs Have Been On Screen In Decades

Dinosaurs. We all know the prehistoric creatures, have likely owned toys of them and learned about their fossils in school. Everyone has some sort of connection to these ancient creatures despite never actually seeing one, and a central reason for that is the 1994 classic Jurassic Park. Spielberg’s masterwork has made its influence clear across virtually every footprint of pop culture, but what makes the film’s icon status so important is that nearly every dinosaur film since its release (including the Jurassic franchise itself) has been chasing its coattails and becoming fully lost in retaining even a shred of that magic.

David Robert Mitchell’s The End of Oak Street doesn’t get close to Jurassic Park’s heights, but what’s significant is that it’s the first film in ages that appropriately captures the earnest sincerity of the Amblin flicks of the 80s while providing its own riveting scale to the promise of dinosaurs wreaking havoc on suburbia. While the action is mostly things you’ve seen executed elsewhere, the end result is still a pure blast of playful silliness and innovative thrills, making The End of Oak Street primo summer blockbuster entertainment.

The film starts within the suburban neighborhood of Oak Street in 1982 as we follow the plights of the struggling Platt family. There’s Denise (Anne Hathaway), an aspiring book writer in a strained relationship with her husband, Greg (Ewan McGregor), who is doing gig work as a pizza delivery driver to help make ends meet as they debate how to handle financial hardships and still be there for their kids, Brian (Christian Convery) and Audrey (Maisy Stella). When the family isn’t participating in the neighborhood’s summer block party, they interact with their loyal dog, Starbuck, and try to find the best moments to connect as a family.

The Platts’ ever-shifting family dynamic starts to take a turn towards the prehistoric when peculiar happenings start occurring across the neighborhood. Plants that only existed ages ago start popping up in neighbors’ backyards, giant piles of poop appear in their nagging next-door neighbor’s, Mel (P.J. Byrne), backyard, and bizarre flashes of light that seem to occur in the Platts’ backyard on a nightly basis. After one huge flash of light that shuts off the power and water to their entire neighborhood, it isn’t long before the Platts decide to venture outside their home to figure out what’s going on and discover they’ve been transported to prehistoric times with dinosaurs destroying their suburbs and killing off other neighbors. With unreal Jurassic stakes now at hand, the Platt family must survive and keep their family together in the most insane of predicaments.

There’s a lot to appreciate from a baseline level with The End of Oak Street: its delightful Amblin homage, its actual palpable stakes, and its dino sequences, but perhaps the film’s biggest achievement is the tonal balance it strikes between the sincerity of its drama and the silly playfulness sprinkled on top. Across storytelling of all kinds, but especially blockbusters, we often lose sight of the fact that sometimes capturing the most relatable of family dynamics, even within the wackiest of stories, is key. The film plays to this knowledge with a genuine earnestness that flows throughout all the thrills and laughs until the end. The pathos behind the dynamic of the Platt family and the strong performances of all four actors give the movie the heart it needs for you to stay fully invested for all 100 minutes of the runtime amidst their adversity against unthinkable odds. Even Starbuck the dog has a moment here that very well might cement him as one of the all-time great film dogs.

As for the Amblin whimsy of it all, much of the ambiance and magic is lifted from where you’d expect: Jurassic Park (duh), the childlike wonder of E.T. and The Goonies; it’s all here and bolstered by another fabulous score from Michael Giacchino. What keeps the clear chase towards capturing this essence from being obnoxious, however, is how the film intertwines its own darkened sense of humor, terror, and pure sci-fi absurdity around the layers of its concept.

The movie more often than not has a lot more in common with some of the weirder touchstones of Spielberg in the film space compared to the hits most of us know. The eerie ambiance of scenes with the mysterious flashes of light and bizarre genre blends channel more Poltergeist vibes, underscored by the film’s willingness to keep you in the dark about the reasoning behind its cosmic events. It all mixes together with the sensibilities of director David Robert Mitchell in surprisingly effective ways, as both the ever-lingering, unseen tension captured so well in It Follows and the surreal absurdity of the neo-noir, conspiracy-driven Los Angeles odyssey that is Under the Silver Lake carry over here. A welcome blend of both old-school sensibilities that have been sorely missed and a unique flair that gives the film the edge it needs to still be unique within the dino movie space.

Speaking of the dinosaurs, Mitchell captures the majestic creatures in both majestic and ferocious ways that haven’t been felt in ages. The movie’s multiple tonal inflections admittedly take a bit to settle, but once the film kicks into gear, it’s a nonstop thrill ride of dino survival through houses, in cars, and amid mayhem across essentially an extended string of chases and attacks within a suburban environment. The way every major sequence is staged through the wide cinematography, endless long takes, and anxiety-inducing split diopter lenses is exquisite. In nearly every scene, there’s such precision to how the dinos are shot before they’re revealed to us and the characters. Mitchell shoots the chaos of these suburbs in such a riveting manner that you almost forget a main reason why the action works so well here compared to all the Jurassic Park sequels: tangible stakes.

There’s plenty of fun and schmaltz to be had throughout The End of Oak Street, and it makes it all the more shocking when the film truly pushes the envelope of its PG-13 rating. The film is appropriately mean when need be in some shocking scenarios, and it only makes each set piece continue in a near-eternal escalation of suspense. At the center of everything this family has called home, as reality falling apart, is Anne Hathaway, who gives a true grade-A performance here as a mother having to keep this family together through thick and thin. She’s the true MVP here performance-wise in a role that’s possibly with The Dark Knight Rises as the most physicality she’s brought on the screen. Of course its just as awesome to see her shooting dinosaurs point blank in the street with a shotgun and using household objects of all kinds to defend herself; simply put, she completely rules here per usual.

The reality is no future dinosaur movie (or movie in general really) will truly capture the pure splendor Spielberg created in the original Jurassic Park well over 30 years ago now, but The End of Oak Street is the closest dino-centric film since all those years ago to emulate the whimsy of what made those early Amblin pictures so special while adding its own flavors of delightful hilarity and relentless kinetic creativity in both setup and payoff. A rip-roaring blockbuster blast that’s so electric it will leave you scratching your head over what they’ve been doing with the Jurassic World movies over the past 10+ years.

The End of Oak Street will debut exclusively in theaters on August 14, 2026, courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery. 

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