The End of Oak Street Review: Anne Hathaway’s Thrilling Dinosaur Movie
There is something inherently satisfying about watching a summer blockbuster take a wonderfully simple premise and execute it with confidence. The End of Oak Street is essentially the movie that asks, “What if dinosaurs suddenly invaded a suburban neighborhood?” and then builds an entire feature around the chaos that follows. The result is an extremely entertaining popcorn movie that feels designed to be experienced with a packed theater, complete with jump scares, big thrills, audience screams, and plenty of moments that practically beg you to shout at the screen.
At its best, The End of Oak Street feels like a modern throwback to the Amblin movies of the 1980s and 1990s. There are shades of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Stand by Me in its early scenes, particularly as we follow kids riding their bikes, dealing with bullies, and navigating the complicated world of growing up. But the most obvious comparison is Jurassic Park, specifically the unforgettable sequence near the end of The Lost World: Jurassic Park in which a Tyrannosaurus escapes into a suburban neighborhood. The End of Oak Street essentially takes that idea and asks what would happen if it lasted for an entire movie.
Rather than constantly jumping between scientists, military officials, laboratories, and other locations, the film keeps its focus primarily on one family as dinosaurs tear through their community. That decision makes the movie much more intimate than its premise might suggest. The science-fiction elements are deliberately uncomplicated. The movie isn’t particularly interested in drowning the audience in exposition about the mechanics of what’s happening. Instead, the sci-fi premise is largely an excuse to put these characters into an increasingly terrifying situation and see how they respond. That works because director David Robert Mitchell understands that the audience needs to care about the people before the spectacle can truly land.
The film initially takes its time establishing its world, and it can feel like a slow burn. We know fairly early that something is going wrong with this seemingly ordinary suburban community, but it takes a while before the dinosaurs fully enter the picture. The buildup, however, is effective. The 1980s setting is more than just window dressing; the neighborhood itself feels like a character. Mitchell’s visual approach further reinforces that period atmosphere. At a time when many modern movies lean heavily on extremely shallow depth of field, The End of Oak Street frequently embraces deeper focus. We can see the environment and the action unfolding within the same frame, evoking the visual language of older adventure and family films. Mitchell also makes effective use of split-diopter shots, giving several shots a distinctive cinematic quality that allows us to clearly view multiple subjects in the same frame.
Michael Giacchino’s score is another major contributor to the film’s nostalgic appeal. His music frequently evokes the sweeping, playful energy of Alan Silvestri’s work on Back to the Future. The result is a movie that feels familiar without simply becoming a collection of references to older films. What ultimately makes The End of Oak Street work, though, is its family at the center of the story. Denise and Greg, played by Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, are experiencing marital problems, and their children are painfully aware of the tension between them.
Some of the film’s strongest moments actually have nothing to do with dinosaurs. One particularly effective scene finds Audrey (Maisy Stella) sitting alone in her room, crying as she listens to her parents arguing in another part of the house. It is a simple moment, but it grounds the movie in something recognizable. Beneath all the dinosaurs and supernatural chaos is a family that is already struggling to stay together. That emotional foundation makes their subsequent fight for survival considerably more compelling.
Hathaway is excellent here, continuing an impressive run of performances in 2026. She brings a tremendous amount of expressiveness to the role and makes a strong case for seeing her in more horror-oriented projects. McGregor is equally good, and it is particularly enjoyable to see him take on a major live-action movie role after a bit of a break and bring so much humanity to it.
The film isn’t flawless. Christian Convery’s Brian has a subplot involving another boy seeking revenge because Brian allegedly broke his brother’s arm. The problem is that we never actually see the incident, making the whole storyline feel as though it originated in a deleted scene. More importantly, its eventual payoff doesn’t have enough impact on the main narrative to justify its inclusion. Removing it entirely would probably make the film tighter. There’s also a bit of a tension between Audrey and Jeannette (Jordan Alexa Davis) that has a good setup, but deserved a stronger payoff.
But once the dinosaurs arrive, The End of Oak Street becomes remarkably difficult to resist. The movie occasionally puts the audience one step ahead of its characters, allowing us to see something lurking behind them while desperately wanting to yell, “Look behind you!” at the screen. There are some genuinely effective jump scares, and the violence pushes the PG-13 rating surprisingly far.
The decision to restrict the story largely to the family’s perspective is especially effective. Like Signs, the movie generally reveals information as the characters discover it. We don’t know everything about what is happening, and neither do they. If something supernatural suddenly descended on your neighborhood, you wouldn’t have a complete explanation either. You would stay with your family, figure out how to survive, and try to make sense of the chaos around you.
That perspective makes the movie’s biggest sequences feel surprisingly personal. There are moments when the characters feel genuinely trapped, and the film does a good job of making the audience imagine what it would be like to experience a dinosaur attack from inside an ordinary suburban home. In many ways, The End of Oak Street is the dinosaur movie that the recent Jurassic World films should have been. Made for a reported $80 million, it operates on a considerably smaller scale than those enormous franchise blockbusters, yet it understands something fundamental about why audiences love dinosaur movies: Put dinosaurs in an environment we recognize, give us characters we care about, and then let the chaos unfold.
The End of Oak Street doesn’t reinvent the blockbuster. It doesn’t need to. It delivers the simple pleasures of a great summer movie: memorable characters, exciting set pieces, scares, surprises, nostalgia, and a premise that is immediately appealing. It is a big, fun, crowd-pleasing popcorn movie that is best experienced with an audience. Sometimes, that’s exactly what you want from a trip to the movies.
SCORE: 8/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 8 equates to “Great.” While there are a few minor issues, this score means that the art succeeds at its goal and leaves a memorable impact.
Disclosure: ComingSoon attended an early screening for our The End of Oak Street review.
Source: Comingsoon.net