The End of Oak Street Review: B-Movie Summer Goofiness

David Robert Mitchell’s The End of Oak Street occasionally tries to take itself seriously, but it excels when it embraces its B-movie persona.

With his latest, it feels like he’s taking what he learned from constructing set pieces in It Follows and the out-of-pocketness of Under the Silver Lake to potentially deliver his most commercial movie yet.

Denise (Anne Hathaway, of The Odyssey) and Greg Platt’s (Ewan McGregor, of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio) marriage is headed for divorce, bound to destroy the family unit. He’s constantly absent, consumed by his pizza delivery job; she’s seemingly living in a world of her own creation with the novel she’s been writing in secret, serving as her only escape from her motherly and wifely duties. The tension of their looming breakup is starting to affect their children, Audrey (Maisy Stella, of My Old Ass) and Brian (Christian Convery, of Frankenstein). Just as things couldn’t get worse, the Platt family is forced to band together to navigate their new surroundings after a cosmic event transports their suburban neighborhood to an unknown place, potentially bringing them closer.

On paper and in execution, Mitchell seems to have crafted a film paying homage to Amblin projects such as E.T. the Extra-terrestrial, Back to the Future, Gremlins, and, most importantly, Jurassic Park. Oak Street has this nostalgic sensibility for suburban America that feels as cozy as it does chaotic. Mike Gioulakis’s cinematography is bright and warm like a hot summer, packed with loud characters that often are more caricatures of your neighborly stereotypes you find in media: the bullies, the cute new girl in town, and the cranky next-door neighbor. It’s very Spielberg-esque in that sense, which is only propelled by the marital drama at the center.

As we transition into its sci-fi plot, much of the film’s drama is replaced by kooky shenanigans reminiscent of Saturday-morning cartoons or B-movies of the 1930s-1950s. By definition, B-movies are known to be genre films with a campy tone, eccentric special effects, and bizarre plots; all for a low price. The End of Oak Street is such an unapologetically demented blockbuster with somewhat of an identity crisis, stuck between wanting to be taken seriously and being a straight B-movie. While Mitchell doesn’t strike a perfect balance, it mostly works thanks to a fun cast that carries the dinosaur-themed action.

Unsurprisingly, Hathaway is the standout, giving a goofy yet endearing performance as a mother and wife who feels trapped in her own family while having tremendous love for them. This doesn’t just come through the dialogue and her confrontations with McGregor’s Greg, but in her physicality. I don’t mean seeing her running with a gun, though that’s definitely a cool visual. I’m referring to the way she conveys Denise’s exhaustion.

Two moments come to mind: after surviving their first day encountering the dinosaurs, Audrey reports the loss of valuable items in the basement to her mom, and Hathaway’s portrayal of wanting to freak out but being forced to keep calm for the kids’ well-being is exquisite. The second example comes after a similar loss, though this time around something in Denise breaks and she can’t properly emote, choosing to walk away and pretend what just transpired didn’t. In both cases, Hathaway brings a much-needed sense of emotional maturity that glues Oak Street even at its silliest.

These two conflicting tones the film carries aren’t ever married successfully, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find them amusing. When The End of Oak Street turns into a big-budget B-movie, there is a ton of fun to be had. Dinosaurs roam the land—presenting an actual threat to anyone present—and somehow the local bullies find time to be mean to the likes of Brian. Characters make decisions that in no world would ever make sense—e.g., Audrey loudly listening to music in the garage while dangerous creatures loom outside the house. Yet, as part of the genre’s tropes, all of this is remarkably hilarious to see play out, and not in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way. The movie is in on the joke.

No better form to discuss this mismatch of tones than with the film’s morally questionable climax coming almost out of nowhere. Avoiding spoilers, our core family is faced with making Greg do something despicable without his knowledge, completely recontextualizing our leads’ actions up to that point. Given the B-movie vibe Mitchell strives for in a majority of Oak Street’s runtime, I think the ending flows with what the film had previously established, even if it leaves you feeling a little bit icky. It’s the movie wanting to be ridiculous while simultaneously keeping you emotionally invested.

Many character and narrative beats don’t land the longer you spend thinking about them. However, for a flick that takes a mean-spirited turn and constantly pushes its PG-13 rating close to an R rating with grotesque violence and dinosaur action (if you know, you know), I find The End of Oak Street to be a success more than not. Much of its VFX doesn’t hold up, but I am choosing to believe that a great part of it is purposefully dull, almost as an homage to the special effects of those 1930s-1950s B-movies. It’s big, it’s loud, it has a cute dog for you to root for; it’s a blockbuster that has no other interest besides having an audience kill 100 minutes under a cinema’s AC in the hot summer. It doesn’t hurt that it might be the best “Jurassic Park” movie since the original.

The End of Oak Street will be released in U.S. theaters, in U.K. and Irish cinemas, and globally in theatres on August 14, 2026.