Courtney Howard // Film Critic
THE END OF OAK STREET
Rated PG-13, 1 hour and 39 minutes
Directed by: David Robert Mitchell
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery, Jordan Alexa Davis, P.J. Byrne, Hudson Meek, Anne Gee Byrd, Emily Kuroda
Filmmakers, it’s time for a heart-to-heart. A few of you think it’s easy to carbon copy director Steven Spielberg’s time-tested, practically patented, Amblin-stamped appeal, but instead your work comes out looking like a limp, mimeographed iteration – or “reheated nachos,” as the kids say in today’s vernacular. With the exception of Seth Worley, whose family-friendly SKETCH did right by Spielbergian style, many directors including Shawn Levy (THE ADAM PROJECT) and J.J. Abrams (SUPER 8) have sputtered with their love letters to the master. Now writer-director Robert David Mitchell attempts the feat with THE END OF OAK STREET, and his play for nostalgia comes across as cheap, sloppy and reductive of many films before it.
Greg (Ewan McGregor) and Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway) seem to be living the American Dream in the 1980s. They’ve got a well-kept split-level house in the idyllic fictional suburbs of Flowervale, a smart teen daughter named Audrey (Maisy Stella) dreaming of going to college, and a popular, mop-headed tween son named Brian (Christian Convery). However, cracks in the facade are starting to show. Denise and Greg have been arguing frequently over Greg’s bad boozing habits and lack of income, as money’s been tight since Greg lost his career gig at Chrysler. This has put a strain on Audrey’s future educational plans. Greg’s been delivering pizzas to make ends meet, which keeps him out of the house where Denise has been writing a novel about a woman desperately itching to abandon her family. Brian’s been acting out at school, smoking and breaking a classmate’s arm – and that kid’s bullying older brother Tucker (Hudson Meek) is looking for payback. Plus, their dog Starbuck (played by dog actors Buzz and Brisket) has been causing a ruckus, tormenting their easily angered neighbor Mel (P.J. Byrne).
However, the Platts are in for the worst situation of their lives when a mysterious event occurs at 11:05pm one stormy evening, transporting a large portion of their town back to prehistoric times. The family slowly realizes something catastrophic has happened and that their pup has escaped their backyard. Yet the danger doesn’t sink in until they see what’s currently causing widespread carnage in their neighborhood: carnivorous dinosaurs. Escape isn’t an option. While they quickly take stock of their supplies and hole up in their home, survival is looking bleak. Venturing out in the dark as they’re all somehow stupidly prone to do gets them into further trouble, but it also proves fortunate when they pick up orphaned girl-next-door Jeannette (Jordan Alexa Davis) and begin figuring out a solution to their nightmarish problems.
Mitchell has basically made two films in one: a creature feature where the raging, ravenous CG raptors, pterodactyls and allosauruses viciously rip apart human prey, have sex doggie style against a home and take dumps “on camera,” and the other an intimate familial drama impacted by trauma. The trouble is, he can’t manage to marry the stories together with much nuance, spectacle or innovative smarts. Scenarios are fairly predictable at every turn. These aren’t characters. They are ham-handed constructs who serve to frustrate audiences. They don’t react like actual humans most of the time and are purely guided by screenwriter convenience. Sure, we inherently feel empathy toward the fractured family’s dire circumstances even before the dinosaurs descend upon the community. Still, as individuals, they aren’t fleshed out enough where we grow to care about them, nor root for their resilience during the worsening Dinopocalypse.
The Platts are dumb even by horror movie standards. Jeanette witnessed her family die and her home bifurcated, but the only thing Brian can think to ask his crush is, “So what’s it like going to private school?” It’s baffling that Brian gets in a physical altercation with his bully at night, causing a loud scuffle, and it doesn’t attract any apex predators (though later we quickly glimpse something in the street that might’ve been glaring evidence left over from a missing sequence). A titanoboa casually slithers through the family home because of an open window (yes, even after they were shown nailing wooden slats over them to secure openings).
Unrealized potential abounds in scenes where we suspect a dino attack was supposed to happen in an earlier draft or film cut, but then either found its fate on the cutting room floor or was forgotten about completely in the production process. The sequence where Audrey catches alone time in the family car in the garage, singing along to Steve Winwood’s “Valerie,” is shot as if a vicious beast were about to pop up outta nowhere and threaten her. But nothing happens, and three seconds later she’s running into her family’s arms upstairs. Soon thereafter, Denise sits at the top of the basement steps, mourning her written work that was lost in the flooded waters below. Although the camera is positioned as if a prehistoric beastie will appear below to scare her, once again, nothing materializes.
Death not only means nothing in the movie’s universe, it stands to completely unravel logistics later on in the epilogue. The Butterfly Effect being what it is and BACK TO THE FUTURE’s rules being ingrained in our memories are harmful intrusive thoughts in Mitchell’s movie. He almost banks on folks having no frames of reference to see this – those who can’t recall the antics of JURASSIC PARK, nor CLOVERFIELD. The goofy Polaroid picture (photographed during a genuinely hilarious moment) that now hangs proudly framed on the wall should’ve been non-existent if the rules of the world were followed. Audiences might be willing to overlook such things, as it panders to those easily seduced by the aforementioned nostalgia bait. But this creative choice is maddening and represents lazy screenwriting that Amblin itself would’ve never let fly.
Intense blue light (replete with lens flare) seen through open windows framed by gauzy draperies blowing in the nighttime breeze captures the aesthetic of Amblin wonderment, yet there’s no authenticity behind it, leading it to look like a thirsty wannabe. At least cinematographer Mike Gioulakis has us split diopter lovers smiling with glee, deploying them in heightened emotional moments where they count. Michael Giacchino’s score is incessant and relied on as a crutch. His compositions – while kitschily named “No More Mr. Nice Geyser” and “Once and For Allosaurus” – frequently barrel through scenes, pushing audiences to feel scared, comforted, sad, or enraptured.
Hathaway, McGregor and Stella do what they can elevating the material afforded them. Hathaway is overcome with grief during one scene where she screams at a whining Convery, and it felt cathartic as an audience member wanting to do the same. Byrne clearly understood the assignment as his performance is pitched at the highest level of camp. Supporting highlights also include Anne Gee Byrd, who plays Denise’s elderly neighbor and grounds the film in naturalism, and Emily Kuroda, who plays the gun-slinging town librarian.
Grade: 2 out of 5
THE END OF OAK STREET will be in select theaters on August 14.
