The tagline for this movie: Where Goes The Neighborhood. A family in the 80s must band together to survive after a preternatural cosmic event transports their suburban neighborhood to an unknown period in prehistory. As they navigate their new surroundings and combat the native animals of the region that sees them as an invasive species, they must also come to grips with the issues that could tear their family apart from the inside.
The End of Oak Street is a fun pulpy matinee adventure film that rides the fine line between different genres from creature features to time travel journeys to coming of age flicks that delivers because of its visual accuracy to what we presently know about the eras of the dinosaurs, the pacing of every thrilling scene and acting that sells the emotional weight of the extraordinary circumstances the characters find themselves in. The writing and directing by David Robert Mitchell is able to recreate the classic directing skills of Steven Spielberg with the writing skills of Robert Zemeckis in a way that keeps you along for the ride, but still makes you question some of the gigantic leaps of logic after the ride is over. Anne Hathaway gives a performance as the matriarch of the family that makes you feel her conflicted emotions while Ewan McGregor’s passive characterization gets across why the family is in its current state of flux while performances by Maisey Stella and Christian Convery will delight or infuriate depending on the scene. The music by Michael Giacchino takes inspiration from the scores of John Williams without becoming too intrusive in the scenes they are used in but it does have the side effect of not really staying with the listener after the scene is done the way certain scores from a certain time period depicted in the film used to. This brings to mind fun tv shows from Land of the Lost to Voyagers! or Terra Nova and movies from Honey I Shrunk The Kids to Time Bandits or Lost In Space. I rate this movie a rating of 3 & 1/2 out of 5.
