‘The End Of Oak Street’ Review: Anne Hathaway & Ewan McGregor Star

Anne Hathaway has five, count ’em, five movies in release this year between May and October. The End Of Oak Street is the one that clearly isn’t going to take her back to the Academy Awards. However considering the sheer hell her suburban wife and mother goes through battling packs of dinosaurs while trying to save her marriage and family is worthy of something. Hathaway and co-star Ewan McGregor really go for it in this unrelenting monster mash of a personal childhood fantasy writer/director David Robert Mitchell has dreamed up, and though the dialogue often is laughably cheesy at times, the sheer level of balls-out action at a pace that never lets the audience breathe is kind of jaw dropping. You may hate yourself in the morning for succumbing to this B-movie-starring A-listers confection but count me in. I had a blast.

Ironically, or maybe on purpose, this isn’t the only Dinosaur-themed wide release this week as we also get the very young-skewing Paw Patrol Dino Movie but this one is something the whole family can likely get into. Mitchell, who hit Hollywood’s consciousness with the well-regarded 2014 psychological horror film, It Follows, and then lost the heat with his followup, 2018’s convoluted Under The Silver Lake (though it does have its admirers) is now back eight years later. His return is a commercial genre period piece set, not accidentally, in 1982, prime time for Amblin and Spielbergian movies like E.T. and Poltergeist, not to mention gems like The Goonies and Gremlins. Like these films it is all set in white suburban America (Atlanta suburb standing in for Michigan) where extraordinary events take place in a very “normal” environment.

Zeroing in on the typical American family of the Platts, we see a normal summer day in the lives of Mom Denise (Hathaway) and Dad Greg (Ewan McGregor), along with teen daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) and younger brother Brian (Christian Convery) when strange things begin to happen. Bolts of unusual light strike the sky, some weird noises, and then Denise’s visit to her elderly neighbor, a woman who points to a flower plant in her backyard that suddenly has just sprouted up out of nowhere over the last couple of days. Some quick research indicates it is a plant that hasn’t existed for millions of years. Uh oh. A massive storm moves in, more creepy things interrupt the family dinner and disturb their dog, Starbuck (played superbly by Buzz and Brisket), and finally KABOOM! It feels like an atom bomb has detonated but what the family Platt is about to discover is that their whole neighborhood has moved, and the end of Oak Street is now a lush and dense jungle. What the hell is happening, here?

Well, as Maisie, ever so familiar with the writings of Carl Sagan, posits this could all be a weird cosmic happening, the convergence of two periods in time separated by millions of years but now meeting in the same corner of the planet. As Denise ventures out and discovers her kindly neighbor now lying in a pool of blood, odd creature-like footprints on the kitchen floor, things are getting scary. From this point on it is a mad dash for survival as all sorts of dinosaurs including the treacherous Allosaurus turn this all frequently into edge-of-your-seat chase stuff as the Platts face real danger. No kidding. “Are we all gonna die?” Brian screams. Yes, probably.

In the midst of all this havoc and destruction, and as dinos from every prehistoric era seem to have a similar goal of chomping down PG13 style on these strange human beings they find have moved into their ‘hood, serious issues come to the surface between Denise and Greg who choose this time to get into a big argument about their marriage. He has lost his job and now delivers pizza but was afraid to tell her. She has been writing a book about their lives and her unhappiness but kept it secret. They raise their voices, the kids are disturbed, and I want to yell at the screen, “WHAT THE HELL! THERE ARE MOTHERF**KING TYRANNOSAURUSES IN YOUR BACKYARD. SNAP OUT OF IT!”

It is also at this point where I decided to stop demanding anything approaching plausibility and just go with it. Lay it on me, I’m ready. If you approach this admittedly wildly entertaining ride for what it is, a Twilight Zone on steroids, you will be in the fun zone. Of course there will be comparisons to the Citizen Kane of the genre, Jurassic Park (and its endless sequels) but Mitchell is going for basics and not really trying to explain away the idea of dinosaurs vs humans in scientific terms and experiments like Jurassic does with the man-made variety. No, this is a bit more awesome in its sheer chutzpah. What WB’s The Meg was to Jaws, The End Of Oak Street is to Jurassic. The film is only 99 minutes, wastes little time getting to the goods, and never stops for a moment to let us realize this is all pretty silly, but really who cares? With a PG13 rating it still feels like it is skirting on the edge of R territory in terms of vividly gross dino dining habits. The actors, starting with the two likeable stars, all are game, the dog is irresistible, plus the dinostars under the guidance of Visual Effects Supervisor Jay Cooper and the wizards at ILM (of course) are a deliciously created mixed bag of types big and small and slimy. The best, hands down, is an overgrown ooozing snake-style reptile that literally seems to span several miles. The scene where it slowly slides its way through the house as unsuspecting family members are oblivious (really? an hour into this thing?) is instantly classic terror. Shout-out also to cinematographer Mike Gioulakis, production designer Maya Shimoguchi, composer Michael Giacchino, and all the stunt performers. Miraculously you have pulled it off for (reportedly) well under $100 million.

And if ever there is a movie to see in a packed theatre it is this one. The audience reaction to all this absurdity is just as entertaining as what is on the screen.

Producers are J.J. Abrams, Hannah Minghella, Jon Cohen, David Robert Mitchell, Matt Jackson and Tommy Harper.

Title: The End Of Oak Street
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Release Date: August 14, 2026
Director/Screenwriter: David Robert Mitchell
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery, Buzz, Brisket
Rating: PG13
Running Time: 1 hr 39 mins