You’d think the market for dinosaur films had been taken up by the Jurassic Park/World films, but it seems we want more in the time between releases from that franchise. Enter David Robert Mitchell and The End of Oak Street to fill that void, however temporary it may be. Mitchell’s most well-known film to date is probably 2014’s It Follows, a darkly thematic supernatural film that saw huge success and has a sequel due next year. Has Mitchell managed to capture lightning in a bottle once again with his more dinosaur-sized blockbuster, or has he taken a few steps too many back to the Triassic period?

Director: David Robert Mitchell
Writer: David Robert Mitchell
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery

In 1982, Denise (Hathaway) and Greg (McGregor) Platt are having marital problems and are on the verge of separating when they, along with their kids Audrey (Stella) and Brian (Convery) and the entirety of their Oak Street neighbourhood, find themselves transported to some time in the prehistoric era amongst dinosaurs after a particularly violent thunderstorm featuring very bright flashes of light. They try to survive in their new surroundings while also trying to find a way back to their own time.

If that sounds like a bizarre premise, that’s because it is, and if you want further explanations, you’re not going to get any beyond a few quotes from Carl Sagan spat out by the fortuitously science-obsessed Audrey pertaining to wormholes. The story doesn’t really make sense much of the time, meaning we’re expected to just accept what is happening rather than look for the actual science behind any of it, and the frustration of being forced to suspend disbelief is further compounded by the irrational and, for want of a better word, dumb decisions made by each character in the Platt family at multiple points in the story. There are some scenes that are perhaps meant to be emotional and shocking but instead come across as comedic (I wondered if I was the only one not getting it until I realised others around me in the cinema were also laughing at the same points), causing the whole thing to be something of a mess tonally. Whether or not it’s supposed to be, it is fun and funny much of the time, and the pacing is pretty solid so that nothing is dragged out, but other than that, there’s not a whole lot else going for it, story-wise.

Visually, the dinosaurs were designed decently, even incorporating this more recent idea that some dinos may have had feathers, or some kind of fur, which certainly gave them a more unique look compared to what we’re used to from movie dinosaurs. The street that becomes essentially insular is small enough to make use feel closed in with the Platts and empty enough to feed into the fear of being isolated somewhere dangerous. Compositionally, the photography worked well with wide shots, particularly during dinosaur chases, and tracking shots, however the use of split-diopter shots seemed very out of place. Mitchell is apparently a fan of this technique, however there’s a time and a place, and a tense family moment with dinosaurs roaming around outside is neither, I’m afraid.

We’re seeing a lot of Anne Hathaway this year, which could have proven to be a disservice to this film. Rather, Hathaway shows some other sides to her versatility as an actor. Perhaps it’s something that has grown from her real life as a mother, but that maternal instinct has added a new branch to her abilities, making her a very believable protector and matriarch to the Platt family, as well as a woman trying to find herself again as her children grow and she grows more distant from her husband. Ewan McGregor however seemed to shy away from producing a strong character in Greg, and from producing a decent American accent it seems, sounding more like when a non-American parodies the accent (I feel terrible saying that because I love Ewan McGregor, he’s one of my favourite actors, but this role was just not it for him). Maisy Stella and Christian Convery gave great performances as the teenagers, but the characters were not exempt from making dumb choices, even for teens, that left me wanting to yell at the screen in irritation (or yell at Mitchell for letting the teens make weak decisions in order to keep the story interesting with more incidents).

Many seem to appreciate this film for its homage to 80s blockbusters, particularly Spielberg films, but I just don’t see it. It doesn’t have the same level of action or adventure that the era produced and missed the mark on mixing fun and threat, if that’s even what Mitchell was aiming for. I also have to ask: did it have to be dinosaurs? Perhaps if this was to be a Spielberg-influenced film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind might have provided better inspiration. Having the street transported to an alien planet would be something I feel I could get more onboard with, from a science-fiction/physics and entertainment point of view. The film was wrapped up fairly nicely (maybe too nicely) but also left open for further stories pertaining to the time travel aspects. It would be nice to have more exploration of that, but I don’t think that is something Mitchell cares to explain, or there would have been more to it in this film.