The End of “The End of Oak Street” is Oak Street

Dinosaurs.  That’s all most people need to know.  There are dinosaurs, and not some kid-friendly kind, but legitimately violent dinosaurs.  Some of which even have feathers, which is quite admirable, and surely will not be a divisive topic whatsoever.  If you haven’t already made up your mind from that one word, you might be out of luck with the newest Bad Robot picture. 

This movie mostly takes place during the time of the dinosaurs – which isn’t very specific but who cares – and that’s funny because something else from the dinosaur time is very relevant to this film.  That being video rental stores.  Back in the Jurassic age, you had to go to a store to rent a movie.  As a dinosaur myself, I have a keen memory of this.  I personally remember seeing movies like Carnosaur, Frankenfish, and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla on those Blockbuster shelves.  Movies that primarily attracted younger males by having cool dinosaurs on the cover flourished in those days. 

But your average American household, represented here by the residents of Oak Street in a suburb of Chicago, has moved on.  Today, you don’t have to go to a rental store, and the internet tells you what to watch, both through the streaming platform itself and the presence of social media.  That means that movies that just relied on having cool monsters and that’s it are a thing of the past.  Occasionally you get a film like Pacific Rim that, while devoid of any real qualities except giant monsters fighting giant robots, is so spectacular on that front that it surpasses the datedness of its premise.  But then you have The End of Oak Street. 

The dinosaur scenes are actually pretty great.  There are at least a few, if not more, shots in this film that really play with suspense, and there are numerous chase scenes that at a minimum will grab your attention, and at maximum will have you at the edge of your seat.  But the days of endless Jurassic Park ripoffs are over, and while this is certainly one of the better ones when it comes to action sequences, it is maybe passable when it comes to the script. 

Remember Stand by Me?  Remember The Goonies?  Remember The Monster Squad?  Remember E.T.?  Remember Stranger Things?  Remember Super 8?  Actually, you might not remember that last one.  Regardless, producer J.J. Abrams is hoping that you remember all of these and more well enough that they feel nostalgic, but just vaguely enough that you don’t feel like you’ve seen this a million times before.  At this point, tropes like the crazy bully, the group of bicycle-riding kids in the cul-de-sac, the parents on the edge of divorce, and the trusty sidekick dog feel less like charming childhood memories and more like artificially manufactured Hollywood schlock.  That’s all there really is when it comes to the human characters.  In the old days, it was obvious you weren’t there for the humans.  But modern audiences are expecting a premium experience for a $15 ticket, and The End of Oak Street just doesn’t deliver that. 

The music feels like an obvious attempt to recreate John Williams.  The CGI is less than perfectly realistic.  The visual aesthetic of the film is more realistic at the expense of imagination.  The cast of the film is fairly balanced when it comes to gender, but definitely makes you feel like you’re in the imagined American suburb when it comes to its racial makeup.  Minorities are present, but not heavily featured, except for maybe Jordan Alexa Davis as Jeannette.  Finally, the film commits the worst sin of all: violence against pets.  It’s not so especially prevalent that it will ruin the movie, but that fact shows how unnecessary and easily removable it is. 

Many film professors would probably look at The End of Oak Street and cite it as an example of bad Hollywood filmmaking.  But in reality, this is a less cynical thing: an attempt to capture nostalgia that unfortunately just doesn’t work.  It still has a lot of thrills, so if you inevitably find it on the front page of HBO Max in two months, it could be worth your time.  But if you’re expecting substance, you won’t be satisfied with the latest and maybe last Bad Robot production.