The End of Oak Street: Film Review

The dinosaur stuff is violent fun, but it’s also repetitive. Some dinosaur scenes are incredibly tense - two, one involving a slithering Jurassic creature and the other a physically impressive oner, prove to be a standout sequences in the film - and some are wholly ridiculous - not sure who cares about dinosaur sex, but the length of that scene tells me Mitchell clearly does - but every scene has the same rhythm: The characters walk somewhere, then dinosaurs show up. Every time they sit down, here comes another one. 

The emotional beats of the film work well, particularly due to Anne Hathaway’s performance in a shocking scene, but then, almost every time, a dinosaur immediately shows up and it’s back to the races. A lot of it is exciting, but there are only so many times you can watch people run from dinosaurs. Non-stop frantic chaos would be apt in this situation, but it, after a point, becomes emotionally tiring to watch on screen. Thankfully, the film’s length and pace are just brisk enough to where most audiences won’t notice or care. 

The humor might be the weakest aspect, as it is only somewhat successful before it becomes repetitive, and, for this film, repeated jokes land worse than the repeated story beats… at least there’s dinosaurs in the story. It is also more juvenile than it needs to be. The characters have funny interactions, but the scatological and sexual humor, while in-line with the Stand by Me influence, is mostly out-of-place here. The dialogue, unfortunately, isn’t extraordinarily strong either, but it has a campiness to it that I don’t mind. The dramatic moments surprised me the most - this film has great stakes - though I wish the story lived in them more. 

The cast is mostly strong. Ewan McGregor is unfortunately miscast, but I must say this is my second favorite Anne Hathaway performance from 2026 so far – her fourth of five overall. I’m so glad she has taken this year to remind people that she has an Oscar for a reason. Her Denise Platt shoulders much of the gravity of their family’s circumstances, as her husband proves to be too optimistic. After a point, her journey feels near impossible and her stress explodes out of her in two strikingly performed key scenes in the middle of the film, but she proves throughout, as she sternly tells her husband Greg, she can handle “as much as [he] can, maybe more.” 

I was also a fan of their children: Audrey, their astronomy-obsessed eldest daughter, and particularly Brian, an aspiring archer and the youngest child of the family. I’ve been a fan of Stella since her work in 2023’s My Old Ass, but Children's Emmy winner Convery surprised me, as his performance conveys his character’s fear and subsequent journey towards triumph over it very well. There is a brief subplot involving Brian’s school bully, though, that adds nothing to the story and feels like valuable time wasted for the characters. The school bully is a necessary archetype for 80s-set family stories, but it’s the one trope that sticks out like a sore thumb here. 

The End of Oak Street is a surprisingly fun, 80s-inspired Spielberg-ian ride. David Robert Mitchell combines the tension and cadence of Jurassic Park, humor of Stand by Me, and the family drama of E.T. to create a mostly original story, executed in a mostly original manner. It suffers from some redundancy, but in all, it provides an excellent audience experience, complete with a BIG John-Williams-esque score from Michael Giacchino. The dog, named Starbuck, is cute, too. 

In this month of homage films, with the excellent Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and the middling One Night Only, Mitchell, paying tribute to the popcorn movie master with this suburban take on the dinosaur flick, might have a sleeper hit on his hands.

Viewed on 8/10/26 at Press Screening

Published on 8/12/26