Dinner With Dinosaurs … But We’re On the Menu
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters. (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.) This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.
Here’s the trailer:
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This movie will push your willing suspension of disbelief to the limit; hopefully if you decide to watch it you’ll be OK with that as it does provide an effective cinematic thrill ride despite some inexplicable plot aspects. One night in 1982 in the quiet suburban town of Flowervale, MI a wormhole suddenly appears that transports an entire neighborhood (but not any surrounding ones) back into the long-ago era of “thunder lizards” so dinosaurs now co-exist with the streets, houses, and people of the movie-set present, providing a reversal of the Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) situation of resurrected ancient beasts trying to kill contemporary humans to such humans now suddenly stuck in an inescapable prehistoric region (dense vegetation prevents an exit from the transported neighborhood) where the beasts are living in their own time, the people desperately trying to avoid being a next meal. The primary characters in this oppressive quandary are aspiring-novelist Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway), her secretly-out-of-work (surviving on his “passion” for part-time jobs such as pizza delivery) husband, Greg Platt (Ewan McGregor), and their teenagers Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convey); however, this family’s already in trouble before the dinosaurs arrive as Denise is ready to file for divorce, Brian’s trying to avoid being beaten up by a gang after he accidently broke the arm of one of their members, while Audrey’s ready to move on to college in hopes of finding a more interesting life (though the time-dislocation portal’s provided plenty of that).
From this setup the movie follows with extreme tension scenes of people trying to escape the dinosaurs (some not successfully) as we wonder along with the Platts how liberation from this sudden-hell could happen (for an extensive rendering of the plot, along with Spoilers, please go here). Comparisons to the long-running Jurassic Park franchise are inevitable here, but once you stop trying to make sense of the wormholes and Denise’s actions in the conclusion … Oak Street flows nicely as mostly-mindless escapism with Hathaway effectively carrying the action from start to finish as her fictional family learns to work together. You may not be able to fully embrace what she does when all seems hopelessly lost, yet what viability do you really expect from an intentionally-wacky story such as this? I’d say just let it ramble where it needs to, hang on for whatever’s next.
The End of Oak Street opened in 3,446 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on August 14, 2026 (still in 461), has made $54 million so far ($120.6 million worldwide) with support from the CCAL where Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 86%, the usually less-enthusiastic Metacritic average score is 69%. Overall, I thought it worked quite well as a fantasy-thriller as does Megan McCluskey of TIME (MC 90): “Outside the Jurassic universe, there haven't been many successful attempts to reinvent the dinosaur wheel, so to speak. […] Once the carnage gets going, Mitchell never really take his foot off the gas. And while the film's ending ultimately requires some logic-bending buy-in, the journey to get there is equal parts thrilling, fun, emotional, and ferocious. Harking back to its Jurassic forbear, The End of Oak Street channels everyone's favorite '80s Amblin classics, but with a far more vicious bite.” Not everyone in the critical establishment’s so enthusiastic, though, as with Odie Henderson of The Boston Globe (MC 50): “[…] sounds like ‘Land of the Lost,’ the Sid and Marty Krofft TV show from 1974 that had pretty much the same plot. Carl Sagan, host of the 1980s show ‘Cosmos,’ also gets namechecked enough to make the late scientist spin in his grave ‘billions and billions’ of times. […] I’m no longer 12 years old with nothing but time on my hands. There’s no denying that Mitchell has made a credible facsimile of the films kids would have encountered back then. Your enjoyment will depend upon the limits of your nostalgia.” Yikes!
Whatever your tastes may be for this sort of fare I’ll leave to you as I’ll also leave with a Musical Metaphor (I'll admit this song's not the greatest connection to this movie, as some of my choices sometimes are, but nothing better emerged [Maybe Billy Joel’s "My Life" from the trailer?]), the Rolling Stones’ "Out of Time" (1966 Aftermath album) to reflect how these humans “don’t know what’s going on / You’ve been away for far too long / You can’t come back and think you are still there,” yet Denise, unlike the song’s woman, shows she can “come back and be the first in line,” even if we’re not fully sure how she does it. So, if this story interests you and you’re not near one of its theaters there’s streaming where you can rent for $19.99 from Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV.
(In this photo Pat on left, Ken on right.) If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys “wisdom” in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence,
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