The End of Oak Street

When it comes to summertime movies, many viewers expect fun thrill rides, escapist fare at its best. At the same time, though, as the summer movie season winds down, expectations tend to lower by the time August rolls around, when the dregs of its remaining releases are unceremoniously rolled out. But, every so often, audiences are in for an unexpected nifty little treat when a sleeper offering hits theaters. Such is the case with the latest effort from writer-director David Robert Mitchell, a Spielbergian sci-fi retrothriller that skillfully drops elements of the “Jurassic Park” franchise into 1980s suburbia, and it does so with a deft mix of heart-pounding action-adventure and raucous, often-campy humor. The film follows the adventures of the Platt family, mother Denise (Anne Hathaway), father Greg (Ewan McGregor), and teenage children Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery), along with their mischievous but resourceful pooch, an Australian cattle dog named Starbuck. On the surface, everything seems fine, though, as soon becomes apparent, there are some simmering troubles in family household (marital discord, financial difficulties, potential problem drinking, the dashed dreams of adolescence). However, after a bright, intense light appears during a thunderstorm one night, the Platts’ world gets turned upside down as their neighborhood experiences a series of infrastructure collapses, along with the appearance of anomalous plant life, specimens that appear to belong to extinct prehistoric species. But that’s only the beginning, as these developments are followed by the presence of dinosaurs. Needless to say, the residents of Oak Street are stunned at what they find, and it’s not long before survival and escape become imminent concerns. But how? What’s more, how did all of this come about? Those are the questions the family and their neighbors face as their world crumbles around them. Admittedly, the premise of this story is a relatively simple one, and it occasionally turns repetitive and derivative as it plays out. However, these shortcomings are made up for by great action sequences and raucously funny laughs, many of them deliberately over the top and characterized by ample but restrained gratuitousness (though squeamish viewers may still wish to bow out). A number of typical Spielbergian tropes are also included here, such as the curmudgeonly neighbor (P.J. Byrne), the kindly old lady down the street (Anne Gee Byrd), the mild-mannered but unexpectedly tough, gun-toting mid-lifer (Emily Kuroda), the neighborhood bully (Hudson Meek) and the beautiful new neighbor girl (Jordan Alexa Davis), all of whose story threads figure into the flow of the narrative and are sufficiently wrapped up by the time the credits roll. But perhaps the biggest surprise here is the film’s integration of subtle but effective themes one might not anticipate from a production like this, such as messages related to second chances, redemption and forgiveness, which are skillfully incorporated without beating viewers over the head (credit the expertly penned script for this). Thankfully, while many critics acknowledge that there are numerous respectful nods to the “Jurassic” franchise, most astutely appreciate the big nostalgic fun in this, despite a cantankerously vocal minority of cynical peers who contend such attributes are out-and-out ripoffs of classic cinematic content. I suppose one could see things that way, but that spoils the fun, begging the question about the half-empty/half-full glass metaphor, one that ultimately comes down to your view/your choice. So what’s it going to be? Given the dearth of good, entertaining pictures at this time of year, in my view, “The End of Oak Street” is genuinely a welcome breath of fresh air in an otherwise-stale room, a late summer release that’s truly “dino-mite.”