The Platt family bands together to navigate their new surroundings after a cosmic event transports their suburban neighborhood to someplace unknown.
Chuck says:
With no “Jurassic Park” sequel in theaters the summer, David Robert Mitchell’s “The End of Oak Street” attempts to scratch the itch anyone jonesing for dinosaur mayhem may have. Working on a smaller scale, one can’t expect the writer/director to produce the sort of full-scale destruction and variety of creatures the “Jurassic” films provide. However, this isn’t what relegates “Oak” to the bin of lackluster entertainments. Its simplistic, repetitive script, inane dialogue and frustrating character behavior accomplishes that.
On the surface, the Platts seem to be a typical, happy, suburban American family. But there’d be little in the way of dramatic tension if that were the case. And while they don’t live in River City, they’ve got troubles aplenty and soon they are revealed.
The patriarch of the clan, Greg (Ewan McGregor), hasn’t told anyone he’s lost his job and insists that he’s delivering pizzas just to have a little extra cash. It’s also hinted he’s a recovering alcoholic. His wife, Denise (Anne Hathaway) has secretly been writing a novel through which she’s been channeling her own unhappiness. That the heroine in her book longs to leave her husband is telling. Audrey (Maisy Stella), their brilliant daughter, hopes to go to Cornell to study astronomy but knows her family can’t afford it. She puts on a brave face, saying any other college would suit her just fine. Her younger brother, Brian, (Christian Convery), is a bundle of insecurities, who longs to talk to the new girl who moved in down the street. That the older sibling of one of his friends, whose arm he broke, is on the lookout for him preys on his mind.
Obviously, these four have a lot on their collective minds so the sudden appearance of predatory dinosaurs on their front lawn only exacerbates their woes. Mitchell doesn’t go out of his way to explain the why’s and wherefores of how this happens – not that it matters – but does provide a blinding white light in the night before the Platt’s friends and neighbors are served up as a hot lunch the next day as a possible cause.
Hiding out in their house doesn’t lend itself to much action, so soon the family is looking to escape. Unfortunately, they find their neighborhood has been cut off from the rest of the world, prehistoric fauna rapidly growing at its edges to contain them. Now exposed, they have to outrun and evade these ancient apex predators, which surprisingly becomes a bit of a bore. The lesser entries in the “Jurassic” series have fallen victim to this as well. Apparently, there are only so many ways you can stage a dinosaur attacking a human before it becomes ho-hum. None of these scenes more the story along, existing to generate thrills that never come, the film relying on incident rather than narrative development. The result is a moribund movie
Equally annoying is the lazy-dialogue and inane actions of some of the characters. Repeatedly, statements are made that point out the obvious, some so egregious they illicit unintentional laughter. The veteran cast does what they can with inconsistent results. And while I don’t expect every film character to be a member of Mensa, I do require they have a bit of common sense. This is solely lacking at times, to the point I was hoping some of these dullards would get munched up real good. As a result, “Oak” comes off as a simplistic, half-developed production that was in dire need of an imaginative writer capable of creating three-dimensional characters and intriguing action set pieces. Yes, such scribes might be rare, but they’re not extinct.
2 Stars
