REVIEW — “The End of Oak Street”

From Warner Bros. Pictures and producer J.J. Abrams comes The End of Oak Street, an original, thrilling and crowd-pleasing summer family adventure with more bite than any Jurassic Park.

Set in a suburban Michigan neighborhood in 1982, The End of Oak Street opens with a mid-summer block party that introduces us to the Platt family. Mom Denise (Anne Hathaway) is a sad wife and secret novelist who longs to escape to a different life, while her husband, Greg (Ewan McGregor), is a recently laid-off dad who delivers pizza to help keep food on the table. Both actors are superb as the distraught-but-determined parents.

Their teenage kids, including lovesick daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) and rebellious son Brian (Christian Convery), sense their growing tension and imminent divorce. The only thing keeping the couple together are their kids and loyal Australian cattledog, Starbuck. However, stranger things start happening on Oak Street. 200 million-year-old extinct plants begin popping up in neighbors’ yards and bright flashing lights are making the dog bark wildly at night. During a booming late night rainstorm, the neighborhood loses all power. Soon the Platts begin to realize that they are not in Michigan anymore.

As they venture outside to search for their dog, they quickly discover that a cosmic event has transported their neighborhood back to a prehistoric world full of flesh-eating carnivores, flying beasts, and slithering monstrosities. With danger around every corner, the tension is non-stop. And the film’s thrilling chase scenes and terrifying dino encounters rival anything found in a Jurassic Park film. That’s mostly because the Jurassic franchise has become a neutered version of itself: where dumb dinosaurs stomp and growl, but would never dare kill any of the named characters.

While similarities to Jurassic Park are inevitable, The End of Oak Street actually has more in common with the frantic “What is happening?!” energy of Poltergeist or the locked-in family dynamics of Signs, in which a family must barricade themselves indoors from the threats that lurk outside. It’s like the kind of unassuming PG-rated 1980s family flick that could give kids nightmares while also leaving a lump in your throat. Indeed, writer and director David Robert Mitchell’s (It Follows) crafts a heroic love letter to 80s family adventures with strong Amblin vibes. This is achieved by his Spielbergian framing and a riveting John Williams-esque score by Michael Giacchino.

However, The End of Oak Street is also an original and daring throwback sci-fi movie that has real emotional stakes. And, unlike Jurassic Park, this film has real bite and does not pull its punches. People get eaten… and you see it. In fact, there is a scene in this movie that is so shocking and unexpected, it elicits audible gasps that will absolutely take your breath away and leave you numb. And, for a moment, it’s almost hard to believe the film can recover, but somehow the movie manages to pull itself (and its audience) back together again because it still has so much more in store: hearty laughs, strong emotional pull, edge-of-your-seat thrills and a great twist. It is a film that truly delivers.

A wonderfully satisfying and entertaining adventure from start to finish, The End of Oak Street is a blast from the past that will thrill you, scare you and make you fall in love again with the movies. If you didn’t get to experience any of that Amblin magic when it originally happened in theaters, now is your chance. So go see The End of Oak Street in a big, loud theater. Go see it with friends and family. Just go see it. You’ll be glad you did. 5/5

Rated PG-13 with a running time of 1 hour and 39 minutes, The End of Oak Street opens in theaters and IMAX on August 14, 2026.