The End Of Oak Street Review: Surprisingly Gruesome Summer Fun (With Dinosaurs)

I don't know what David Robert Mitchell was thinking when he pitched "The End of Oak Street," which he produced, wrote, and directed, to executives at Warner Bros. and other production companies like Bad Robot. Whatever he said to them apparently worked, and we got is one of the wildest summertime adventure movies I've ever seen — and this is coming from someone who saw Jordan Peele's "Nope" on opening day.

"The End of Oak Street" is a movie that throws almost everything conceivable at the wall to see what sticks, and somehow, with just a 99-minute runtime, it tells a story that's cohesive enough to work, mysterious enough to keep you intrigued, and deliriously fun enough to keep you engaged from beginning to end. Wisely, Mitchell puts most of the movie on the extraordinarily capable shoulders of Anne Hathaway, the Oscar winner who might pick up a second award for her incredible turn in Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" and is phenomenal here as Denise Platt, a conflicted mother in an unhappy marriage writing a novel about leaving her husband Greg (Ewan McGregor) and kids Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery). (If I had a nickel for every time Hathaway screamed at her on-screen son during a moment of stress in 2026, I'd have two nickels, but it's weird that it happened twice.) As the Platts enjoy a normal summer in their unidentified suburb, they're shocked when said suburb is singled out by prehistoric plants, which turn a circular radius into a dinosaur-filled wilderness.

These dinosaurs range from "absolutely terrifying" to "relatively benign," and as far as the Platts are concerned, they're impossible to distinguish. Attempting to survive and occasionally looking for their family dog, Starbuck, the Platts arm themselves to the teeth ... and we meet these creatures.

Despite its genuinely bonkers premise and the sheer absurdity of its plot beats, "The End of Oak Street" manages to work pretty well, and I think that's in no small part because of how David Robert Mitchell approaches his unhinged story. Even though Audrey provides an explanation about worm holes (we learn through context clues that she's really into space exploration), the reason behind the bizarre transformation of this otherwise sleepy neighborhood is never fully explained, and that's for the best. Mitchell also trusts his audience enough to just throw the dinosaurs into the mix, starting with feathered velociraptors that tear the heads off unsuspecting neighbors and continuing with grass-mowing tortoises, wily T.rexes, and a super-long, deeply bizarre ancient eel of sorts that terrorizes the Platts not once, but twice. "Jurassic Park" may have pioneered gripping on-screen dino chases, but "The End of Oak Street" takes them to their bloodiest and craziest conclusions.

I really can't stress this enough: this movie is wild, and I mean that in every sense of the word. An entire prehistoric ecosystem springs up in the vicinity of the titular Oak Street, and that means everything that comes with said ecosystem. This is a movie that proudly shows off piles of dinosaur poop, dinosaurs snacking on plants and humans alike, and in one extended sequence, two dinosaurs doing it. (This is provided as a moment of levity, and even though it's dumb, it works in that sense.) Mitchell also pulls out several filmmaking tricks to keep your jaw inching towards the floor, deploying everything from split diopters to at least one genuinely thrilling one-take chase. "The End of Oak Street" is, despite its spectacle, also weirdly real.

Something that I was wholly unprepared for when I sat down to watch "The End of Oak Street" is its commitment to gruesome spectacle — in that the camera never, ever avoids a dinosaur ripping off someone's head, legs, or other body part. (Without spoilers, there's a horrifying full leg removal that made me gasp.) As the Platts — all of whom feel comfortably lived-in and even like a real family, from Denise's dissatisfaction to Brian's earnest desire to see his dog Starbuck — traverse the suburb, they have to step over dead bodies almost constantly. You have to admire Mitchell's guts here; other movies would tuck the bodies out of sight. This one constantly reminds you that this ancient world is deadly, bloody, and unforgiving.

Not every aspect of "The End of Oak Street" works perfectly, of course. The beginning, which sets up the dynamic of the family, drags a little — and introduces tertiary characters like Jeannette Christiansen (Jordan Alexa Davis) and the Tucker brothers (Hudson Meek and David Alexander Kaplan), none of whom really add anything to the story. (Jeannette, in particular, strikes up a sudden and underexplored romance with one of the Platt kids, which isn't given enough screen time to make much of an impact.) Some of the dinosaur CGI looks patchy, which is normal for films that rely heavily on VFX. We won't spoil the ending of "The End of Oak Street" here, of course, but it wraps up just a little too neatly after all that carnage. Still, this movie is unapologetically silly, fun, and exciting ... and commits to the bit in a way more movies should.

"The End of Oak Street" releases on August 14, 2026.