The End of Oak Street Review: Anne Hathaway Battles Dinos In This Oddly Toned Spielberg Rip-Off
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but the movie works best when it throws that away
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Every few years there's a film determined to hit audiences in their Spielbergian feels. A movie meant to evoke the warmth and wonder of watching E.T. for the first time, or the awe of witnessing Jurassic Park. Spielberg's blend of nostalgic appreciation (mind you, those two films are set in contemporary times) used to discuss serious topics is one of the reasons he's the master of cinema. And, hell, we already had a Spielberg film this year with Disclosure Day. But director David Robert Mitchell would like to make this year's attempt.
Mitchell's last feature was over ten years, the teen centered horror film It Follows. And his return to the director's chair is a movie heavily inspired by Land of the Lost by way of Jurassic Park. Produced by J.J. Abrams, who has made his fair share of Spielbergian movies (the comparisons to Super 8 are high here), but Mitchell's script is a jarring, tonally inconsistent almalgm of Spielberg's innocence butting heads with a meanness and, at times, stupidity, that's laughable. The cinematic equivalent of mixing ice cream with dirt and nails.
Set in 1982, the Platts are an average American Family living on Oak Street. Mom Denise (Anne Hathaway) spends her days caring for her family and writing a book in the basement at night. Dad Greg (Ewan McGregor) is a lovable loser delivering pizzas in secret. The pair are headed to divorce and their two children don't know what to do. But when a mysterious event transports their street back to the age of the dinosaurs the family must band together in order to survive.
There are a lot of direct and immediate influences Mitchell utilizes here, so much as to almost feel plagiaristic. The opening scene, showing the streets signs, a potato sack race and a sweeping orchestral score by Abrams regular Michael Giacchino (one of the major highlights of the movie) almost makes you believe Rod Serling is going to pop up and introduce The Twilight Zone. The clearest influence, though, is Spielberg's E.T. (1982), itself a story about something otherworldly as a means of talking through harsh familial issues.
But where that movie was told from a child's perspective, this is more an overarching story of a family in dysfunction. Or, really, just the parents. Denise and Greg are struggling with the usual problems: Greg has lost his job and is pretty much a good-time guy who's overly optimistic. Denise is more practical, willing to be mean and get her hands dirty if she has to. Of course, these fundamental personality traits seem like even a good amount of couples therapy might not be able to save them. To their credit, Hathaway and McGregor are good. Hathaway, particularly, is adept at making the character feel three-dimensional. She's able to run a BBQ, comfort her kids, and threaten to burn her neighbor's house down, all with equal levels of believability.
There is, though, an unfair harshness given to Hathaway's Denise, with the movie almost using this as an opportunity to punish her character for daring to imagine a different life. Greg, and really everyone who reads it, believes Denise's story is a means of saying she hates her husband and kids (I guess we gotta assume every story Stephen King writes is autobiographical?), and when it's destroyed the movie shrugs it off with nary a thought. Oh, don't worry, there's a resolution to it by the end but it comes after Denise realizes she, and she alone, is the problem in her marriage.
McGregor, brought to the project after original actor Oscar Isaac departed, certainly tries with Greg but never seems comfortable in the role. He's left to rock an unfortunate hair piece – the lack of blending is noticeable in the first 30 seconds – and generally has a goofy, wide-eyed immaturity that doesn't seem cute in a man over fifty. He's the Stu Pickles of this venture, a man who can't hold a job but darn it he's just so charming and positive. The third act turn for his character is great, but the movie's eventual resolution completely undoes it and lays out that Greg doesn't have to do anything to get his marriage back on track.
The kids, played by Maisy Stella and Christian Convery, also suffer from a bizarre combo of personality elements. Stella's Audrey is a Cornell-bound burgeoning astronomer who loves Carl Sagan – which really comes off like a way of giving us an explanation for what eventually happens on Oak Street – while Convery, who has given great performances in other high-suspense films is left to act like he's seven-years-old.
Once the family is transported back the movie becomes a visual spectacle which is meant to make up for any lack of interest you might have in the characters. The dinosaurs certainly look great, though there are a few moments where the CGI – particularly when Hathaway stabs a snake-like dino – doesn't blend properly. From here, the movie shows bits and pieces of a Frank Darabont-led disaster movie, specifically his 1988 take on The Blob. Good people die without a second to mourn – one genuinely surprised me so much I gasped in the theater – and the suspense never lets up for a second.
And yet that Spielberg desire for small-town '80s hijinks never completely goes away and becomes laughable when it's inserted into a movie where dinosaurs are trying to kill people. This is most egregious when Convery's Brian goes in search off his dog Starbuck and is confronted with the bully he was avoiding in the beginning thinking it's a great time to try to kill him. Kid, dinosaurs are everywhere and you think NOW's the time to lie in wait and take revenge? Then again, Denise falls into this trap too, bringing up Greg's drinking and lack of job as they're boarding up windows. From dinosaurs.
Kristen Lopez
These moments happen a lot in the film and come with all the subtlety of a dinosaur running through the forest. Actually, Mitchell probably thinks they're subtle considering his dinos are the most light-footed creatures ever. I counted at least three times the dinos get the drop on every one because of either a lack of peripheral vision or the fact that dinosaurs don't make any noise, you know!
The ending itself makes everything that's preceded irrelevant and, ultimately, makes much of The End of Oak Street feel incredibly manipulative. And this is already a movie that says dogs save the day and your parents just need to be placed in a high stress environment to love again. Add in a crap-ton of split diopter shots, too.
It's not that The End of Oak Street is bad. It's just flagrantly copying better movies and TV shows. It's so determined to get '80s loving Spielberg guys that it doesn't really care if anyone else is interested. Storytelling is light, the characters is all over the place, and the tone doesn't really know where to settle. Just shut up and watch dinosaurs. And, yes, those dinosaurs are enjoyable. But after leaving the theater that's all you'll remember. (This did leave me singing the '90s Land of the Lost theme song for the last 48 hours!)
Grade: C-
The End of Oak Street is in theaters Friday.
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