‘The End of Oak Street’: Forget logic, and dino story soars

Horror film specialist David Robert Mitchell’s sci-fi survival thriller ‘The End of Oak Street’ is a fairly fun entertainer if you can overlook the plotting bloopers scattered around the narrative.

Better known for the 2014 cult horror hit ‘It Follows’, Mitchell makes a meal of this Spielbergian JJ Abrams-produced dinosaur thriller, despite it being diametrically different from his genre expertise.

Set in 1982, the film begins in an idyllic setting in the town of Flowervale. The Platt family lives in a typical American suburb where the inhabitants seem to be having the time of their lives as a neighborhood community event goes on in full swing. We soon realise that all is not well with the Platts.

Mr Platt has been laid off; he is now delivering pizzas and the Mrs seems totally out of sorts with him. The kids know that their lives are close to being upended and their dog is adding to the family’s headaches by making a mess of the neighbours’ gardens.

A minor storm causes a tear in the space-time continuum and transforms the idyllic suburban setting into a prehistoric swampland. The neighbourhood suddenly going centuries back into a dino era isn’t quite convincingly explained, but the smooth transition helps in building a modicum of belief.

The slow-burn momentum of the initial half-hour slowly moves towards a tense direction following the strange cosmic phenomenon.

Oak Street gets overrun by prehistoric herbivores and carnivores, dinosaurs mostly, who run rampage while the inhabitants of the suburb start running helter-skelter in an attempt to save themselves.

The troubled Platts — father (Ewan McGregor), mother (Anne Hathaway), son (Christian Convery), and daughter (Maisy Stella) — discover that in times of crisis, the family must stand together as one and face the inevitable.

The focus of the narrative is entirely on the Platt family, with the foursome hogging the limelight as they try to escape from being ravaged by the gigantic creatures. The peripheral characters only exist to fill up the spaces. Other than the Platt family, none of the other characters register.

The stakes are dire for the Platts and it is to the credit of the cast that the tension accelerates and their plight feels believable. It also helps that Anne Hathaway is captured in an age-defying stunning way that makes you forget about the minor discrepancies that crop up.

The events unfold smoothly and the main actors subsume themselves into the scheme of things.

Like in horror movies, the characters go out of their way to solicit danger. It would have made more sense for the family to stay at home, especially when the danger is from creatures they’ve never seen before. But they find reasons to venture into the danger zone, imperiling their lives as a consequence. Obviously, logical flow would not aid in heightening the drama, so ‘illogic’ prevails.

The baffling plot developments are countermanded by sincere and brightly-lit sequences that are quite beguiling on their own.

Writer-director Mitchell’s view of suburban America may not gel with everyone, but the film has its interesting moments and despite the plotting bloopers, manages to keep the audience in its grip. Mitchell conjures up some effective set pieces and that makes up for most of the negatives.

Nifty camerawork from Mike Gioulakis, John Axelrad’s smooth editing, smart production design, apt period detail and minimal VFX keep the narrative primed for the unexpected ending. The sound effects are also quite effective.

The many varieties of dinosaurs — some that haven’t even been seen in the Jurassic Park series of films — make for an interesting watch. The CGI of these wild creatures is also done in authentic detail. The brisk 99-minute runtime aids the involvement.

This film might not be the heavy-duty action adventure you expect, but it certainly makes for an interesting and entertaining watch.