The Reel Review
Members of the Platt family find themselves navigating a strange new world when a cosmic event transports their 1982 Michigan neighborhood to someplace unknown. Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor star in this genre mashup of mystery, action/adventure and sci-fi/thriller.
The most intelligent thing about The End of Oak Street is its double entendre title. This silly excuse of a brainless popcorn flick has dinosaurs chasing and eating members of the neighborhood as family members ponder that some sort of wormhole/portal has transported the neighborhood back to the prehistoric era and with Hathaway’s character suddenly turning into a rifle-toting badass. Um, okay.
The action itself, however, is actually well done, with writer/director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, Under the Silver Lake) incorporating realistic-looking CGI dinosaurs and fun 1980s set design, which helps offset family member dialogue and character decisions so exceptionally stupid as to create unintentional humor. The End of the Oak Street is more of an entertaining but brainless theme park ride than a story. Strap in, check your brain and enjoy.
REEL FACTS
• The End of Oak Street was Hudson Meek’s final movie role. Meek (Baby Driver, MacGuyver), who plays the neighborhood bully in the film, died in December 2024 after falling from a moving vehicle in the suburbs near his home south of Birmingham, Alabama. He was 16.
• Initially Oscar Isaac (Frankenstein, Dune) was cast to play the father but after he dropped out of the project Ewan McGregor won the role over Brendan Fraser, Christian Slater, Sam Rockwell and Matthew McConaughey.
• The End of Oak Street was filmed in Atlanta in the Spring of 2024.
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