It’s a brave writer/director who decides to make a new version of a favourite movie, especially when it’s a much-loved piece of cinematic history and one that spawned a huge franchise which is still with us over 30 years later. Step forward self-confessed Jurassic Park fan, David Robert Mitchell, who fearlessly crash-lands dinosaurs in suburbia but still tries to put people at the centre of the story. The End Of Oak Street is a challenge, both for all seven Jurassic features, but also for a director who is more associated with horror.
Denise (Anne Hathaway) and Greg Platt (Ewan McGregor) live with their children in the comfort of 1980’s suburbia – all detached houses and manicured gardens – but, over the course of one night, the power is cut, the water is shut off, and they ultimately discover a chasm surrounds their cul-de-sac. They’ve been ripped out of the present day and plunged into the prehistoric era, cut off from everything they know and have to navigate a hostile landscape, one where dinosaurs are on the rampage and see all the residents as living lunches. For the family, staying together is their only hope, but their dangerous circumstances force them to confront personal problems which, until now, have been kept under flimsy wraps.
With Jurassic Park, and more recently Jurassic World, near-monopolising movie dinosaurs, the arrival of The End Of Oak Street immediately begs an obvious question. Is this a challenger to the established order, a new voice on the subject – or should we say a new roar? Realistically, it looks unlikely, despite World’s box office takings sliding downwards. The film entertainingly fills the gap between last year’s Rebirth and the next in the series, which is currently without a director. It comes across as an affectionate tribute to the original, feeling initially like a large, nostalgic slice of Spielbergiana complete with kids on bikes, parental strife and a score that constantly echoes John Williams.
But its running time of just over 90 minutes doesn’t point to any epic ambitions, and its finite ending indicates it could be a one-off. What Mitchell has in mind is a fun adventure laced with familiar tropes, a few laughs and a drop of gore, something of a contrast to the likes of It Follows (2014). Undemanding enjoyment is the name of the game.
While it relishes the conventions of the genre – teasing the first appearance of the dinosaurs with a claw here and a bloody footprint there – and leaves us to imagine most of the carnage with the help of munching sound effects, it does have an unfortunate habit of tripping itself up. The reason for Oak Street and the entire neighbourhood moving back in time is disappointingly hokey, feeling even weaker when it’s used as the family’s escape hatch from all the chaos. And the clunky piece of editing in the film’s final third, which moves them magically from one place to another, could have been lifted straight from a B-movie. But welcome light relief comes from the dinosaurs themselves, especially a pair of enormous beasts sharing an intimate moment propped up by a house!
While the creatures from another world run the film, Mitchell is careful to make sure that the human characters get a fair share of the spotlight. Even if you find yourself wondering why the gutsy, intelligent Hathaway originally fell for McGregor’s sap, they do make an appealing couple, and you care about what happens to them and their children. The best news of all, however, is that The End Of Oak Street is a significant improvement on the risible AI dog podcast released earlier this week to promote the film. Let’s hope it doesn’t discourage audiences from seeing what is, essentially, a monster helping of fun.
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In cinemas from August 14th / Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery, Jordan Alexa Davis, P J Byrne / Dir: David Robert Mitchell / Warner Brothers / 12A
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