The End of Oak Street: Great Dinos meets weak stories once again.

Riot’s Reviews: The End of Oak Street

Dinosaurs will always have the market cornered on a special intersection of science, imagination and fear. But when it comes to Dinos in film, that market has been dominated by Jurassic Park and its ever growing list of sequels. There’s been multiple attempts to replicate that magic, with what I would argue is limited success (even with the JP sequels). I was particularly tickled by the fact that in IMDB’s rankings, Jurassic World Rebirth ranked lower than Land Before Time18 (not really 18, but holy wow there are a lot of Land Before Times). The genre has been at risk of being stale and uninventing for a while now, so I was sincerely stoked when I caught the first trailer for The End of Oak Street. The concept looked new and interesting, it had two big name actors signed on, and it appeared to feature more scientifically accurate Dinos to boot. Riot’s expectations were high, so would The End of Oak Street finally take down the behemoth that is the Jurassic series, or would it prove another disappointing chapter in Dino World?

Sorry guys, its definitively the latter. Let me hit you with the positives first though. The elements that were exciting about the trailer did pay off. The concept is in fact original, even though it falls apart badly by film’s end. The Dinos themselves looked incredible. Feathered/furred Dinos have an interesting edge of menace that I didn’t expect and for a PG-13 movie, there are some gnarly kills that go down, however out of focus some of them may be. Since the film is set in the 80’s, I enjoyed seeing the costume/clothing choices, classic cars, and distinctive home décors. The slice of 80’s suburbia the people are trapped in is an unexpectedly interesting setting. Finally, the limited cast and caliber of acting was pretty good throughout, inhibited only by a script that is so dull and unoriginally sunk into ideology that it brings the whole project down.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to really dig into the big reasons as to why I disliked this film because it would spoil everything (mostly involving the entire films glaringly obvious attempt to emasculate every male character involved, apparently JJ Abrams learned nothing since The Last Jedi). Please don’t get it twisted and think that means there’s a lot of plot points worth mentioning, it really comes down to a long series of events/choices that go too far beyond the pale of believability. First, I have to say that even though I love Ewan McGregor as an actor, this role was not it for him. In a life and death situation, it’s simply not compelling to watch a 55 year old dude in 80’s style short shorts attempting to run. (Not that I could do much better at 40, but that’s beside the point). Anne Hathaway wasn’t much better in that respect, but both had far better moments in the intimate, non-action sequences where they could flex their acting chops.

Next, for being a group of people that have literally no other distractions other than survival, they are pathetically bad at situational awareness. Example that doesn’t spoil: a T-Rex literally walks, undetected for a full city block, all the way up to the family without being noticed. Instead of building tension watching the Rex approach, it comes off as a cheap catalyst for the next “conflict” that makes less than no sense. When you think back to the water cup scene in the original Jurassic Park, the tension is so much more palpable knowing that there’s an impending attack coming and the characters are fully aware of it. Director David Robert Mitchell overuses these long shots to try and get the audience to constantly scan for danger, to build suspense of the possibility of something happening and then eventually nothing does. So when things finally do happen and their causes are so rudimentary and on the nose, it really detracts from the whole experience.

I wish I could say more, but that’s about as vague as I can get it. The plotlines are predictable and ham-fisted. There’s a number of scenes that serve literally no purpose. There’s no through line/meaning to the whole experience and it actually opens a ton of questions that can’t possibly be answered by what little “science” they’ve provided in the rest of the film. The ending feels cheap and undeserved, only concluding through a string of ex machinas that frustrate more than amaze. And while I appreciated the moment of brevity that it provided to the film, there’s something about a Dino sex scene that is too baffling for words.

Riot’s Rating: 6.5/10: Props for trying something new, really cool Dinos, and some brutal kill scenes. The human element and the absurdity of how everything plays out is simply too much to overcome.