Suburban Sci-Fi and Shotguns in The End of Oak Street
Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor swap marital arguments for prehistoric mayhem.
Yesterday, the genre auteur David Robert Mitchell is dropping the wildest popcorn movie of the year. Arriving in cinemas courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures, The End of Oak Street takes an A-list married couple, places them in a retro 1980s cul-de-sac, and violently hurls their entire neighborhood into a prehistoric wasteland. Critics are already calling it a balls-out creature feature, and easily the most thrilling dinosaur flick since Jurassic Park.
Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor star as Denise and Greg Platt, ordinary parents dealing with standard marital friction in 1982. Suddenly, a bizarre cosmic event rips through their town, cutting the power and teleporting their entire street into a swampy, terrifying alien landscape. Instead of nosy neighbors, they are immediately forced to defend their front lawns against packs of hungry, scientifically accurate feathered dinosaurs.
Mitchell, the mastermind behind the modern horror masterpiece It Follows, channels old-school Steven Spielberg wonder but laces it with a much darker edge. Rather than leaning on overstuffed CGI spectacles, the film captures an indie B-movie grit. Early reviewers at The Hollywood Reporter and Variety are praising the sheer chutzpah of the film, noting that Hathaway goes full action-hero. Seeing an Oscar-winner defend her home from prehistoric predators while blasting Steve Winwood’s “Valerie” on a car cassette player is exactly why we go to the movies.
Produced alongside J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot banner, this 99-minute ride is an unpredictable mix of family drama and Mesozoic mayhem. It is fast, funny, loud and the perfect antidote to a predictable summer box office. Secure your tickets for the biggest screen possible, because tomorrow, suburbia is going extinct.
Credits:
Images courtesy of Warner Bros
Words: Roisin Teeling @roisinteeling
