Let's Do The Timewarp

The plot of The End of Oak Street sees an early 80s suburban family, and their entire neighbourhood suddenly transported back to prehistoric times. There's some talk of solar flares and time bubbles by way of an explanation but it's all nonsense in service of one central idea: dinosaurs in suburbia. Turns out this idea is so good it not only sustains the film but leaves you wondering why nobody has done it before.

The central family consists of Anne Hathaway's frustrated novelist Denise Platt and her pizza delivering husband Greg (Ewan McGregor), along with their children Audrey (Daisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery). While Dad and the kids are exactly the type of characters you would have expected to see in an 80s family adventure but Denise is a more modern female lead. She wants to achieve more than simply being a mother and is unhappy with her simple suburban life. Add in the fact she plays the realist when things kick off and her constant negative vibe can mean the character skirts the edges of becoming annoying at times. Fortunately, Hathaway is on hand to keep the viewer on side with soulful eyes and cool charisma. Likewise, McGregor's inherent charm helps explain why the ambitious Denise hasn't yet succumbed to her itchy feet and left her underachieving hubby.

The younger actors are great too, and get to do all the things movies have taught you to expect children of their generation to have done. There are bikes to be ridden, neighbourhood girls to crush on and bullies to be avoided. The family even have an uppity neighbour to feud with in the form of P.J. Byrne's house-proud Mel Jacobs (who has more than a fair point about the Platts getting their dog under control if you ask me). Oak Street is as good a pastiche of a Spielbergian suburb as you are likely to see and is complemented by a Michael Giacchino score that perfectly captures memories of 80's era John Williams.

The film spends some time setting up the American as apple pie backdrop but when the dinosaur mayhem kicks off, it's non-stop. There is scant regard paid to placing Oak Street in any particular time in prehistory, as predators separated by millions of years and thousands of miles stalk the neighbourhood streets together. This is the right move as it allows for all manner of reptile related set pieces, from a gargantuan snake slithering its way upstairs to Greg trying to fight an oversized allosaurus with a sledgehammer. The dinosaurs don't simply copy the Jurassic Park template, having their own unique look, which is slightly closer to modern understanding of what the huge reptiles actually looked like. The juxtaposition of the beasts in a picket fence poster child of a neighbourhood provides plenty of memorable visuals and, crucially, makes dinosaurs scary again.

While the Jurassic World movies have relied on increasingly stupid mutant dinos to provide their spectacle, Oak Street helmer David Robert Mitchell doesn't need any such tricks. The It Follows director uses the combination of the outlandish and the familiar to create a horror-lite vibe that keeps the audience on their toes. One scene in particular is so shocking it completely changes the tone of the film and leaves you unsure as to what is going to happen in the remaining runtime. The fact the ending sort of rows back on some of the tougher choices the movie makes will disappoint some while relieving others.

The End of Oak Street isn't a film that is going to leave you deep in thought but it is about as good an homage to 80s blockbusters as you are going to see, thanks largely to the fact it has a director who isn't afraid to bring his own unconventional tone to proceedings. Dinosaurs haven't been this entertaining (or scary) since 1993.

8 amorous Camarasaurus out of 10.

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