By Ben Wright (@Iamzavagno | www.xgeeks.co.uk)
This review is spoiler-free.
When suburban life takes a terrifying turn, a family find themselves fighting for survival as dinosaurs are unleashed on their quiet surroundings. Blending family drama with creature-feature horror and retro adventure, The End of Oak Street is very much a throwback to the big-screen dinosaur movies.
Dinosaurs and Obi-Wan Kenobi? Two boxes ticked, I’m in!
I love dinosaurs. Even the bad, trashy and cheap B-movie types. So it doesn’t take a lot to impress me when it comes to dinosaurs, and much like most creature features, I tend to give them a bit of a pass. So I should have loved this movie, right?
Sadly, I didn’t.
It’s in no way a bad film. For the most part, this is a very good dinosaur movie with a lovely Amblin vibe. But there are just a few too many things that let it down. It’s really good at setting up a scene and building the tension, only to fumble the execution.
The performances are outstanding across the board, and Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor do a great job of grounding the family drama amongst all the chaos. You genuinely buy into this family as being real and authentic, which makes the more emotional moments work.
And yes, the family’s dog is fine. Otherwise I wouldn’t have even seen this. So rest easy, that’s the only spoiler I’ll give away. Although, given that he features on his own poster and heavily in the marketing, his actual screen time was hardly worth noting.
The film leans heavily into that retro, Spielberg-style adventure and creature-feature horror, and I really enjoyed that side of it. The dinosaur action is fun, the suspense works, and there are some genuinely brutal moments. The 12A rating is pushed pretty hard at times, with some bloody and nasty sequences that remind you these dinosaurs aren’t exactly messing around.
But this is where some of the problems start to creep in.
The character decisions and script logic fall apart a little during some of the bigger survival moments. The tension builds brilliantly, but then the film seems to find a get-out-of-jail-free card every single time. Death is sold as a very real possibility throughout the film, and there are some genuinely brutal consequences, but when those consequences are repeatedly taken away, it starts to undercut the threat.
By the end, the stakes just don’t feel quite as high as they should.
Speaking of the ending, there’s a perfect moment where this film could have stopped, not on a cliffhanger, but with more of a “now what?” feeling. I would’ve much preferred that. Instead, there’s another five minutes that become the actual ending, and suddenly everything is nice and fluffy and tied up with a bow on top.
And for me, it just didn’t work.
There’s also very much a feeling that this could be an unofficial sequel, or at least part of the world of another J.J. Abrams property. I’m not a fan of that franchise, so I can pretty easily retcon that idea in my own head and just enjoy The End of Oak Street as its own unique, one-off dinosaur movie.
The VFX are pretty solid, and I really liked the dinosaur designs. They feel much closer to what we now understand these creatures to have looked like rather than simply going with the traditional movie dinosaur look.
There’s also one creature in particular that I found genuinely disturbing. It’s not your traditional dinosaur, and I thought that was a really welcome addition because it gave us something a little different.
Obviously, the darker scenes make the dinosaurs look even better, while some of the daylight shots do highlight the limits of the VFX. Overall though, they looked good consistently, although my preference will always be to go down the practical route whenever possible.
And then there’s the score.
Michael Giacchino is absolutely cooking with this soundtrack. His stunning score adds so much gravitas, tension and emotional weight to the film, and there are moments where the music does as much heavy lifting as the performances and visuals. It’s a fantastic piece of work and easily one of my favourite parts of the movie.
I just wish the story had trusted its own setup a little more.
There’s a really good dinosaur movie in here. The performances are great, the dinosaurs look good, the action is fun, and that whole 80s-inspired Amblin vibe is something I really enjoyed. But when the film keeps building towards moments of genuine danger and then finds a way around the consequences, it takes away some of the excitement.
Fun, nostalgic and packed with dinosaurs, The End of Oak Street delivers a great popcorn adventure with some fantastic performances, a stunning score and some impressive creature work. It’s a good time at the cinema, even if some frustrating story decisions stop it from being the dinosaur movie I wanted it to be.
X-Geeks 