Jurassic Street?

One of my favorite things about the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies is what happens when the dinosaurs get off Isla Nublar, or whatever island or nature preserve they’re living on, and onto the mainland.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park gave us the T. rex stomping through San Diego, turning the city into prehistoric chaos. Jurassic World Dominion sent raptors and other assorted dinosaurs into Malta, where the streets became the setting of a giant chase sequence with creatures that really, really wanted to eat Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard — or anyone else they could find.

Those sequences work because there’s something inherently cool about watching dinosaurs in the real world. Put a velociraptor in a jungle or a contained environment and, sure, that’s scary. Put one in someone’s backyard and suddenly all hell breaks loose in a more relatable way.

David Robert Mitchell’s new sci-fi thriller The End of Oak Street takes that idea and runs with it — or, more accurately, shuffles along behind it.

The premise is terrific. It’s the early 1980s, and Denise and Greg Platt (Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor) live a seemingly ordinary suburban life in Michigan with their two children, Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery). Then something very, very strange happens: A mysterious cosmic event rips the neighborhood out of its familiar surroundings and deposits it somewhere else. Somewhere back in time. Suddenly, the Platts must figure out what happened while trying to survive a neighborhood now populated by dinosaurs.

As someone who loves dinosaurs and the Jurassic movies, it sure sounded exciting to me. Unfortunately, The End of Oak Street isn’t Jurassic Street.

The problem isn’t ambition. It’s that the movie keeps stepping on its own premise. Instead of embracing the glorious absurdity of a suburban cul-de-sac suddenly becoming Jurassic Park, Mitchell piles on family drama and ponderous emotional business. The result feels less like a dinosaur adventure than a therapy session interrupted periodically by CGI.

Actually, it feels like a lost, feature-length episode of Steven Spielberg’s 1980s TV series Amazing Stories, which is appropriate since The End of Oak Street was produced by J.J. Abrams, who’s basically built his career by ripping off — I mean, paying homage to Spielberg time and again (for a prime example, see Super 8). Amazing Stories was a high-concept anthology show (I remain a fan of the episode called “Hell Toupee,” about a man who buys a strange hairpiece that seems to possess supernatural powers), and The End of Oak Street, with its early Amblin nostalgia, would have fit right in.

There’s even a scene here that takes place in the Platt’s living room with camerawork seemingly lifted directly from Jaws and other Spielberg films. You’ll know it when you see it.

Anyway, this film isn’t as good, as clever, or as thrilling as the Jurassic movies. The central idea should produce one spectacular “Holy crap, there’s a dinosaur in the neighborhood!” moment after another. Instead, the movie spends too much time wandering around with Hathaway, who is badly miscast. She is, of course, a terrific actor who has starred in four movies so far this year (including The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Odyssey), with one more still to come. Here, though, Hathaway often looks out of time, like she wandered onto the wrong set and is desperately trying to find the exit. McGregor fares somewhat better, but suffice it to say, nobody is giving Sam Neill or Laura Dern, or Pratt or Howard, a run for their money.

Yes, there are dinosaurs. Lots of them. They are horrific — and not always in a good way. Some look genuinely menacing. Others look dinosaur-ish but strange. The effects frequently undermine whatever suspense the movie is trying to generate. It’s difficult to be frightened by a prehistoric killing machine when you’re distracted by how much it looks like a digital special effect.

Even the Jurassic World movies, for all their excesses, understood the basic assignment: dinosaurs should be fun. Also: You don’t need to overdo everything when you can simply let a T. rex walk into the frame.

Indeed, for a while, you’re sitting in the theater thinking to yourself, “Where’s the T. rex? There’s gotta be a T. rex here, right?” And then, like a much buzzed-about cameo appearance, there it is: down the street, running toward the camera. For a few minutes, everything clicks: The scene has tension, energy, and scale. Things go off the rails. Someone gets eaten. And the movie suddenly becomes the ridiculous dinosaur adventure you were hoping it would be.

It’s the rare moment when The End of Oak Street feels worth seeing. 

Then it’s over, and we move on.

That’s what makes this such a frustrating failure. There is a legitimately great, more enjoyable movie buried inside this one: suburban America versus dinosaurs. That’s the whole pitch. You don’t need so much family drama. Just give me neighbors in danger, a lawn mower, a minivan, some overwrought suspense, and one extremely hungry T. rex. Okay, fine. Some pizza, too.

Instead, The End of Oak Street is one of the biggest misfires of the year.

I’m giving it a C.