The End of Oak Street Is A Spielberg Homage With Bite

Months before it was scheduled to hit theaters, the internet did what the internet does and began speculating that The End of Oak Street was actually a covert Cloverfield movie. It’s not, but the suspicion is understandable — this wouldn’t be the first time that producer J.J. Abrams pulled such a stunt. But what the film lacks in Cloverfield tie-ins it makes up for in fidelity to Abrams’ most prominent and lasting influence.

This movie is Spielbergian to its core, and writer-director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, Under the Silver Lake) pays tribute to the king of the blockbuster with all the thrilling set pieces and kids in peril that fans could ever hope for. (It also pays homage to the director’s most recent movie by having the characters briefly feint towards wondering what God would think about their predicament.) While Mitchell does bring some of his own filmmaking flair to The End of Oak Street — there are no less than 20 split diopter shots in this movie, four of them in a single scene — for the most part, this is an affectionate and meticulous homage to an era and the filmmaker that defined it.

In true Spielbergian fashion, the film revolves around an ordinary family, the Pratts, who are about to be placed in extraordinary circumstances. Mom Denise (Anne Hathaway) is outwardly content, but inwardly she’s going through a Feminine Mystique crisis she expresses by writing an angsty novel in the basement late at night when everyone else is asleep. Dad Greg (Ewan McGregor) is also emotionally closed off, although not in a way that’s unusual for a man of his generation. Elder sister Audrey (Maisy Stella) dreams of studying with Carl Sagan, while younger brother Brian (Christian Convery) deals with all the bike-and-bullying based drama that always torments 13-year-olds in these movies.

Then one day they wake up and their neighbors are being eaten by dinosaurs.

The End of Oak Street doesn’t spend much time (or any, really) trying to explain the science part of its science-fiction premise. This is for the best: Not only would such explanations be ludicrous — basically, the idea is that a chunk of suburban Michigan gets flung millions of years into the past via some kind of time bubble — but they would take away valuable screen time from the dinosaur action sequences. These are all-around stellar, featuring visual effects from Industrial Light & Magic and driven by an exhilarating sense of danger that doesn’t diminish with repetition. It’s as if the famous T-rex scene from Jurassic Park was an entire movie, and it’s just as exciting as that sounds.

At first, Mitchell announces the prehistoric threat with shaking trees and faraway screeching. Then we get brief glimpses of a spiky tail or a patch of feathers. (A shot of a Stegosaurus whose plates are barely visible over a picket fence is especially clever.) Eventually, we graduate to full chase scenes down streets lined with modest brick bungalows as the Pratts are hunted by massive carnivores. The stakes feel real in these moments of peril — many people die in this movie, and there’s not always time to go back and save someone when things get intense. Cats, kids, and old ladies are especially vulnerable to becoming dinosaur food, and Mitchell takes some big gambles here in terms of violence. One scene involving a gigantic snake is an all-timer, better than anything in any of the recent Jurassic World movies.

The End of Oak Street is set in 1982, the same year that E.T. first opened in theaters. Production designer Maya Shimoguchi does a stellar job evoking the era, as does costume designer Erin Benach; it’s kind of the ‘70s and kind of the ‘80s at the same time, which is how it actually feels when you’re living in any particular decade. (The Pratts’ kitchen looks similar to Elliott’s in E.T., which is a nice little nod.) Michael Giacchino’s music is also vintage in its own way, faithfully reproducing the string flourishes and exuberant brass of a classic John Williams score.

One key difference is that the ‘80s movies Mitchell and Abrams are emulating dealt matter-of-factly with issues of divorce and family strife, and didn’t reach for happy, 1950s-style conclusions like The End of Oak Street does. Denise’s frustrated ambitions literally wash away in a flood in the first third, and from there her character shifts into a one-dimensional mama-bear archetype who exists only for her children. (That was a thing in ‘80s blockbusters, to be fair.) That said, Hathaway performs capably in both her character’s conflicted and protective modes; the same isn’t true for McGregor, who’s flat and unconvincing as the hapless Greg both p.d. (pre-dinosaurs) and a.d. (after dinosaurs).

Stylistically, The End of Oak Street is so true to its influences that any small tweaks that Mitchell makes to the Amblin formula really stand out. One modernized note, an implied Sapphic romance between two teenagers, is corny but cute. Another, the elevated violence, is the boldest thing about this film. For most of its runtime, however, The End of Oak Street relaxes into tropes and styles reminiscent of its ‘80s counterparts, from its emphasis on the traditional nuclear family to the blunt and declarative dialogue. (This is the kind of movie where characters announce that they’re entering a room before stepping into it.)

“Make the dialogue more obvious” is also the type of note a filmmaker might get from a studio head who doesn’t respect their audience’s intelligence, a phenomenon that certainly existed in the ‘80s and presumably continues through to today. In this way, The End of Oak Street is a gargantuan snake eating its own tail, a commercial product paying tribute to the commercial products of its creators’ childhoods. This is the best action-adventure nostalgia trip money can buy, with some truly exhilarating sequences that rival the movies that it’s emulating. But it also has many of the same shortcomings as its inspirations. That’s the price of loyalty.

The End of Oak Street opens in theaters on August 14.