I watch A LOT of films, and this past year my Odeon membership has definitely been put to good use. I’ve watched so many things, even films completely out of my comfort zone, and actually that’s been one of the best things about having it. I’ll go and see something I probably wouldn’t have paid for individually and sometimes end up absolutely loving it.

But I’d seen the trailers for The End of Oak Street and thought, disaster film and dinosaurs in a retro early-80s setting? Sign me up! This wasn’t even out of my comfort zone, this was completely my kind of film… I’d even go as far as saying textbook-Annie.

I waited for the first day it launched and booked my seats…

Now, I’d recently gone through a bit of a movie binge fest at home after injuring my ankle, so I’d caught The Last Houseon Netflix. A watchable film, could completely see why it had gone straight to TV, but an interesting premise nonetheless. In the cinema? Nope, totally not at the right level. With that film, a family gets stuck in their house by an unknown source and it’s how they have to survive indoors. Like I say, watchable, but not big-screen worthy.

Back to The End of Oak Street, and I apologise in advance because this might upset people who loved this film, but I did not.

I was also extremely sad it wasn’t something I loved.

What Is The End of Oak Street About?

The setting is very early 80s, so sprinkles of 70s influence still grace the scene, especially during the neighbourhood get-together at the beginning. We meet the Platt family: Greg (Ewan McGregor), Denise (Anne Hathaway) and their teenage kids Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery).

Maisy Stella was also in Nashville as one of the young singing sisters, which is exactly where I recognised her from.

Now Anne Hathaway is literally everywhere at the moment, so another Anne Hathaway film, I guess, was done before she vanishes for a while to have her baby. I get it. But we’ve seen A LOT of her recently – my Odyssey review is here – and that’s another film that probably didn’t help The End of Oak Street for me, but more on that later.

The basic premise is that this completely normal suburban family suddenly finds themselves in a very abnormal situation, and it becomes about the family surviving together against what is outside, all whilst dealing with their own family woes. And yes, there are dinosaurs.

Honestly, the premise is 100% why I was sat there.

The End of Oak Street Cast – Did the Characters Let It Down?

The characters I felt were a bit flat, along with the movie really. There wasn’t that hero character to lift up the rest of them. Was Ewan McGregor a bad choice for Greg? Could the Dad have had a bit more oomph to him? I think potentially.

But then I thought the same about Anne Hathaway as Denise and even the kids. Nothing was overtly wrong with any of the characters, nobody was terrible, but nobody stood out either. There wasn’t somebody who made me really feel the emotion of what was happening.

And surely with a family survival film, that’s kinda important, right?

I want to care if these people get eaten. I want to be internally screaming at someone to get back inside, grab the kids, save the dog, DO SOMETHING. Instead, I felt like I was just watching it all happen. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few “oh my gosh” bits that I didn’t quite expect, but there just wasn’t a huge amount of emotion to it.

SPOILER ALERT – skip the next few paragraphs if you haven’t seen the film!

Ewan McGregor’s Greg does get eaten, although it’s left somewhat to your imagination. Which I actually thought was really good – it avoided showing you everything and instead let your imagination take you there, something I don’t think enough films do anymore.

And I did care in that moment. I was shocked because I genuinely wasn’t expecting it, and Greg is a nice character. He’s a bit meh throughout the film – very much the quiet, go-about-your-job, trying-to-make-ends-meet Dad – but he goes back to save his wife, and there was something about that scene that did get me.

I just couldn’t quite place the emotion afterwards. Maybe that’s the problem I’ve had trying to explain how I felt about the characters in general. I didn’t not care about them, because clearly I did when it mattered. I just don’t think the film built enough of a connection with them beforehand for those moments to hit as hard as they could have.

Even the lawyer on the loo in Jurassic Park got some kind of sympathy from me when the T-Rex ate him, and he wasn’t a main character! So maybe it’s not that I needed The End of Oak Street to make me love these characters. I just needed a bit more from them throughout the film so that when those big moments came, they really landed.

Would I feel the same had the cast been different? Maybe. Perhaps it wasn’t Ewan McGregor at all and Greg just needed to be written with a bit more oomph. Would changing Anne Hathaway have made any difference? Maybe not, because I felt the same about the kids. There just wasn’t enough charisma within the family for me.

Had I Just Watched Something a Little Too Similar?

This is where The Last House comes back into it.

I’d literally just watched it on Netflix, and whilst they’re definitely not the same film, there was enough of that family-survival-against-something-monstrous thing going on that I couldn’t help comparing them.

The Last House is much more about surviving inside the house and dealing with this unknown threat keeping them there, whereas The End of Oak Street obviously takes things in a much bigger direction with the neighbourhood, dinosaurs and everything else going on. But essentially I’d watched two families thrown into survival mode against something they don’t understand within a really short space of time.

Had I watched the two films six months apart, would I even have made the connection? Maybe not. But within days of each other? Yep, it definitely dimmed the light a little. Would I feel differently about The End of Oak Street had I not watched The Last House? Probably. But would I suddenly have thought it was amazing? No, I truly don’t think so.

The End of Oak Street Dinosaurs, CGI and Jurassic Park Nods

I personally loved the premise, but was it groundbreaking? Not for me.

I did love the nod to Jurassic Park with the big pile of dinosaur droppings in the neighbour’s front yard. If you’ve watched Jurassic Park, you know EXACTLY what that is referencing, and it made me laugh. I also liked the stuff involving the family dog, although I won’t say too much about that because I don’t want to ruin it.

But the CGI was very obvious in places.

Dunno, maybe it’s that Odyssey so recently had been so great and considerate with its effects that this stood out more to me? I’d only recently sat in a cinema watching something where I’d been really impressed with what they’d done visually, so perhaps I’d accidentally set the bar a little too high.

But equally, this is a film with dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are a pretty big part of why I bought a cinema ticket, so I want to believe they’re actually there. There were moments where I really didn’t.

Does The End of Oak Street Explain What Happened?

There is a very brief, almost flippant moment near the beginning where Denise is talking to someone about a plant that’s appeared. They mention that there have been more of them, and at the time it feels like a bit of a throwaway conversation. Looking back, though, I actually wish they’d done more with things like this.

Not necessarily explain what was happening, but show us more signs that something wasn’t quite right. A few more plants appearing where they shouldn’t, something odd in the neighbourhood, little changes that you might not think much of at the time but suddenly make sense later. Instead, we spend most of that early part with the family’s woes and then there’s a flash of light and, well… hi dinosaurs.

I think they could have built that sense of something changing around them a little more before throwing us into it. It would have added to the uneasiness without actually giving anything away. Because one thing I actually really liked about The End of Oak Street was that, for once, this film didn’t do the common “let’s explain the why, what and how” thing.

You know when a film spends ages building up this massive mystery and then suddenly somebody conveniently knows EVERYTHING? We then get five minutes explaining what happened, where it came from, why it happened and probably what everyone had for breakfast before it happened.

We don’t really get that here, and I liked it. It lets your imagination run with you instead, which I actually think can be much more effective. I’m sure there will be people who come away desperately wanting all the answers, but weirdly that wasn’t something that bothered me at all.

I didn’t need them to explain why the dinosaurs were there or give me some big scientific explanation for what had happened. I just think they missed an opportunity to make us realise, perhaps even subconsciously, that things were already changing before that flash of light.

Give me a few more weird plants. Give me something slightly off in the background. Let me spot something and wonder whether it was important.

Then… well, hi dinosaurs.

Is The End of Oak Street Worth Seeing at the Cinema?

So, onto the big question: was The End of Oak Street actually worth going to the cinema for, or should it have gone straight to TV?

For me, this was a watchable once film.

I don’t think it’s terrible. There are things I genuinely liked about it and, as I’ve said about 400 times now, I LOVE the premise. If I’d been sitting at home one evening, spotted this on Netflix and stuck it on, I probably would have come away thinking it was perfectly watchable.

But did I need the big screen for it? Nope.

Is it award-winning or something I NEED to see again? Absolutely not.

Maybe Odyssey being so great so recently had made me expect more from the effects. Maybe watching The Last House so close to it meant I’d already had a dose of family survival against something monstrous. Did those things dim the light for me? Yes, without a doubt.

But does The End of Oak Street deserve all the hype? No, I truly don’t think so.

The End of Oak Street Review – My Final Verdict

I might be on my own little island with this review because people seem to be loving The End of Oak Street, but better character charisma was needed for this film. I needed somebody in that family to really stand out and make me more invested in what happened to them, and I just didn’t get enough of that.

Whilst I love that, for once, the film didn’t do the common “let’s explain why, what and how” and instead lets your imagination run with you, I still just came away feeling flat.

That’s probably what disappoints me the most. I didn’t go into The End of Oak Street expecting to hate it. I went in thinking this was basically made for me. Retro early 80s, disaster, family survival, monsters and dinosaurs? What could possibly go wrong?

Apparently quite a lot.

Would I watch it once? Yep. Would I recommend someone gives it a go when it comes to streaming? Absolutely. Would I book another cinema ticket?

Nope.

So, onto the next one.

*Images from Warner Bros