THE END OF OAK STREET (2026)

Studio:   Warner Bros.
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Writer:   David Robert Mitchell
Producer: J.J. Abrams, Hannah Minghella, Jon Cohen, David Robert Mitchell, Matt Jackson, Tommy Harper
Stars:    Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery, Jordan Alexa Davis, P.J. Byrne, Emily Kuroda

Review Score:

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Summary:

A suburban family must survive dinosaur attacks after a cosmic event mysteriously transports their entire neighborhood to the prehistoric past.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In the idyllic suburban town of Flowervale in 1982, family man Greg Platt enjoys a neighborhood block party with his wife Denise, their science-minded daughter Audrey, and their 13-year-old son Brian. Audrey mentions to a friend how she’s interested in attending Cornell because her idol Carl Sagan teaches there. Afraid to tell his wife he was recently laid off, Greg leaves the festivities early to deliver pizzas for a side job. An ensuing argument between Greg and Denise leads Brian to worry his frustrated parents might be considering divorce.

Denise, an aspiring author who secretly works in the family’s basement on a novel about an unhappy housewife who leaves her husband, gets feedback on her manuscript from elderly neighbor Barbara Huddleston, a former editor. Before she leaves, Barbara shows Denise an unusual tree that sprouted in her backyard.

Several of Brian’s friends warn him that bully Kaden Tucker wants to beat him up because of a prank that accidentally broke the arm of Kaden’s younger brother Charles. The boys also take a moment to spy on Jeannette Christiansen, an attractive new girl who recently transferred from a private school. Meanwhile, problematic neighbor Mel Jacobs threatens Denise regarding Brian’s dog Starbuck being on his property.

That night, a bright light and strong winds wake Brian in his bed. The following morning, Mel Jacobs complains about a large pile of animal manure in his yard that he assumes the Platt children put there as a prank.

Denise goes to the local library to research the strange tree found in Mrs. Huddleston’s backyard. Librarian Doris Valcourt identifies the tree as an extinct species of prehistoric plant.

Accompanied by an ear-splitting sound, another bright light envelops the entire neighborhood that night. In the morning, the Platts discover their house’s power and water have been cut off. Screams are heard outside. Everyone soon realizes that dinosaurs have mysteriously overrun Flowervale.

While searching for Brian’s missing dog Starbuck, Denise finds Mrs. Huddleston mauled to death in her home. Venturing out the back door, Denise sees that Mrs. Huddleston’s backyard now sits at the edge of a prehistoric forest.

Also out searching for Starbuck, Greg escapes a dinosaur attack with help from his wife. Creatures kill numerous neighbors as Greg and Denise narrowly make it back home to reunite with their children, who had their own dinosaur encounters in the meantime.

Like other panicking families, the Platts try escaping in their car. However, they discover all of the roads are blocked by forests, indicating a circle of their entire neighborhood was inexplicably transported to the prehistoric past.

The Platts return home to fortify their house as the surrounding area continues descending into chaos. Greg admits to Denise that he lost his job and didn’t tell her. Denise is distressed to discover that the basement, where she keeps her typewriter and manuscripts, is completely flooded.

Thinking back on the unusual sights and sounds that prefaced the event, Denise and Audrey theorize that a portal somehow transported their town back in time. Greg posits it must therefore be possible for a portal to bring them back home. Meanwhile, a flock of pterodactyls kills Mel Jacobs on his roof.

Denise expresses frustration over Greg’s unflappable optimism. Greg confronts his wife about the content of her novel, leading to another argument about keeping their family together.

A Starbuck sighting draws Brian outside. Audrey follows after her brother. When they discover their children missing from the house, Greg and Denise use their car to go after them, but their vehicle is attacked and smashed by a large creature.

Kaden and Charles Tucker attack Brian, but the brothers quickly come to regret bullying him during the crisis and leave him alone. Audrey helps her brother recover. The two of them then rescue Jeannette, whose parents were killed. Brian’s newfound crush on Jeannette diminishes when he notices her and his sister developing a mutual interest in each other.

While fleeing from more dinosaurs, Greg and Denise find a portal inside one of the neighborhood homes. After discussing possible scenarios for entering the portal, the two of them agree not to separate from their children. The portal vanishes. Greg and Denise soon reunite with Brian, Audrey, and Jeannette.

Greg and Denise pause for a laugh when they stumble upon the amusing sight of two massive dinosaurs mating. Denise takes a Polaroid picture of Greg posing behind the creatures.

A T-rex attacks everyone. Greg is violently killed, sending his family into a spiral of grief. Brian again observes his sister and Jeannette growing closer.

Denise, Brian, and Audrey return to their house with Jeannette to collect supplies. A massive serpent slithers through the house, attacking everyone until Denise fights it off.

In the distance, Denise sees a light flashing from librarian Doris Valcourt’s house. Thinking it could be a portal leading home, everyone makes their way there, but they find the portal flashing in and out of existence above a tree. Denise, Brian, Audrey, and Jeannette venture through the house past Doris’s dead husband Roy to reach the roof.

Jeannette times the portal’s pulses to successfully jump into it while it is open. Brian goes next, but he mistimes his jump and falls to the ground, badly injuring his leg. Starbuck arrives to defend Brian from a dinosaur attack. Denise and Audrey help Brian get back to the roof for a second jump attempt, but they are cornered by attacking creatures. Doris Valcourt unexpectedly emerges to create a distraction with her shotgun, but she is mauled to death by dinosaurs.

Denise, Brian, and Audrey successfully jump through the portal with Brian’s dog. They land in a swimming pool back in the year 1982 and reunite with Jeannette. Everyone soon realizes that they returned home 20 minutes before the anomaly occurred, meaning they have a chance to prevent many of the deaths from occurring in their neighborhood.

Jeannette rushes home to warn her parents. Denise orders a pizza to summon Greg to their family’s current location. Following an emotional reunion with their husband and father, during which Denise reaffirms her desire to strengthen their family, the Platts watch from a safe distance as Flowervale vanishes in a massive orb of light to be replaced by a prehistoric forest populated by dinosaurs.

With the event still unexplained two years later, Denise enjoys success as the author of “The End of Oak Street: The Incredible True Story.” Now dating Jeannette, who has a twin because she saved herself and her parents from going back in time, Audrey attends Cornell under the tutelage of Carl Sagan. A news retrospective recounts how Denise Platt became a hero for making phone calls that saved the lives of her neighbors Barbara Huddleston, Mel Jacobs, and Doris and Roy Valcourt.

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Review:

Nothing says “picturesque suburban setting” quite like an impossible amount of cheery people crowding a cul-de-sac for a sunny block party featuring families giggling their way through sack races, limbo lines, and water balloon tosses. And nothing says “1982” quite like the game Simon sitting on a coffee table in front of a TV playing “The Love Boat” while a boy upstairs peeps a Playboy by flashlight beneath Superman bedsheets.

For most movies, saturating the screen with this much nostalgia would justify anyone saying, “Gag me with a spoon.” For “The End of Oak Street” though, these sentimental strokes fit the film’s clear intention to look and feel like a classic Amblin adventure, right down to composer Michael Giacchino doing his best impression of a whimsical John Williams score.

There’s just enough detail to the Platt family’s personalities to qualify them as distinctive characters, although their simple designs aren’t particularly unique as archetypes go. Fearful of rocking a marital boat that’s already listing, Greg has a side hustle delivering pizzas, making him the eternally optimistic husband/father who’ll do anything to avoid disappointing his household. Denise dreams of graduating from unhappy housewife to successful author by secretly pounding on typewriter keys in the basement. Their 13-year-old son Brian dotes on his dog Starbuck, rides bikes with his buddies, and crushes on the new girl who just moved next door. His science-minded sister Audrey reads a book on the moon landing and chats about Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” giving her an obsession that will certainly come in handy when the entire neighborhood is inexplicably enveloped by a portal that sends everyone back to the prehistoric past.

That’s a premise that’s surprisingly easy for an audience to swallow with minimal questions thanks to the Saturday matinee mood that the movie builds. It actually takes the people in the story longer to get on board with what’s going on, creating “The End of Oak Street’s” only real lull while waiting for the Platt family to connect the clues of bright lights, mounds of animal manure, and unusual plants sprouting in backyards before rampaging dinosaurs finally go into full-on assault mode. Other than being a little slow to set up, “The End of Oak Street” uses its lean 95-ish-minute runtime with economical efficiency for the most part.

Naturally, raptors and a T-rex are integral to intense action. Unlike their appearances in almost every other area of genre cinema, these ones come with feathers to please historical purists who’ve long been annoyed by purely reptilian portrayals. Beyond those usual suspects, a massive sea serpent slithers in alongside some turtle and alligator ancestors for harrowing scenes of cars, people, and entire houses being consumed by plentiful Jurassic chaos that’s more than happy to test the limits of how many bitten-off limbs a PG-13 rating can contain.

Even with its reasonable runtime, the dino destruction starts getting repetitive until an unexpected event suddenly alters the dynamic of the main group undergoing this ordeal. It’s a move many won’t fathom the movie would ever dare make, yet it does. The grimness that comes with this gasp serves as an immediate wake-up call that predictability is no longer in play. Even with this shock flipping the tone from fun and safe to fatal and bleak, “The End of Oak Street” ultimately boomerangs back into fantasy by working out a happy ending that would seem like a complete copout if it weren’t perfectly in line with the film’s early-Spielberg appeal.

Most of the fiction’s blemishes don’t plump into full pimples. The script whips right by bits involving a bully, an unrequited crush, and a couple of other dead-end subplots. There’s also an odd religious element that comes across as an underdeveloped attempt to add a philosophical theme to a popcorn movie with zero use for subtext. But there’s never an outstanding sense that any of these threads need more resolution than what little they get. After all, this isn’t a soap opera interested in acknowledging every typical beat of family drama.

Instead, “The End of Oak Street” is an old-school B-movie romp operating on an A-movie budget. It’s a slightly gory, deliberately breezy lark you can burn an hour and a half on without feeling like you should have spent that time more wisely. “The End of Oak Street” pays homage to an era when Hollywood wasn’t afraid to make big movies with cyborg cops, intergalactic soldiers, and colossal creatures smashing through things. When talent like Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway aren’t committing themselves to grueling shoots on Christopher Nolan epics or challenging Oscar-bait roles, it’s far preferable to see them chewing through the softly scented gouda of a dino disaster movie in their downtime than in some throwaway Netflix thriller anyway.

Review Score: 75

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