Summer isn’t over yet! We both take a look at The End of Oak Street which is now playing in cinemas everywhere!
About: After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings.
Paul’s Reaction: This is end-of-summer silliness that plays in so many ways as Steven Spielberg-lite. The setting is Spielberg’s favourite: a Rockwellian American suburban neighbourhood with just a few cracks beneath the surface. The neighbour is complaining about the family dog getting loose, and the kids are worried that Mom and Dad’s arguing may portend an up-coming divorce. Otherwise it’s all sunshine, friendly hellos and community barbecues. They live in a huge home, but Dad is improbably delivering pizzas to get by since he lost his job. One night, strange lights flash through the neighbourhood, and before you know it, some sort of UFO time warp has allowed dozens of huge dinosaurs to invade the idyllic borough. We are in hardcore Spielberg-Jurassic Park land at this point, but the variety of “sauruses” crawling through windows and munching on neighbours is more silly than truly frightening. It, of course, brings Mom and Dad closer together again as there is nothing that unites an American family more than having a common enemy. Popcorn munchers may get a thrill or two out of the constant CGI effects. Too bad nobody told Hathaway and McGregor how ridiculous the whole thing is, as they play their roles with earnest seriousness. If nothing else, this film may point the way to a cure for high divorce rates. Not to mention, an expedient way of eliminating annoying neighbours.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Jason’s Reaction: The late summer picture The End of Oak Street is best enjoyed with an extra big bag of buttered popcorn. Maybe even triple butter. I mention the concession purchase because you go to movies like this for the thrill of it all, and even with its flaws and sometimes questionable character decisions, this is still big screen fun with a surprising pulse beneath it. I quite liked the premise, which doesn’t explain itself right away, with a family and their surroundings suddenly being transported to pre-historic times, and almost right away our hero family, led by the Platt family, try to figure out exactly what is going on and fight their way out of it. I quite liked how the characters, especially Mrs. Platt (Anne Hathaway) think through the situation and we learn with them, and the movie really picks up with the dinosaur action.
On the filmmaker front, I really hope it isn’t another 8 years until filmmaker David Robert Mitchell makes another movie! I remember meeting him all the way back at the Toronto International Film Festival with It Follows, a wonderful horror film with a bizarre premise matched with a Disasterpiece music score. Years later, he made the overlooked Under The Silver Lake with Andrew Garfield which came and went in theatres. I had always wondered what happened to him, and it’s great to see him helm a much bigger movie with the backing of producer JJ Abrahams. It has been mentioned many times but this is a Spielberg idea through and through. The movie is all set in 1982 (the same year ET hit theaters, no less) but I also noticed some hints of Brian De Palma in some of the earlier scenes and even a light Poltergeist reference right before the family were transported back in time. There’s also a wonderful score by Michael Giacchino that makes you want to sit through the credits just to listen to the music and not just wait for a post credit scene (there isn’t one here).
It’s far from perfect; some of the dialogue is VERY silly and over the top, and I have a few mild criticisms of its final act that feels a bit rushed in explaining exactly what the paradox was all about, but I was too busy grinning with all of this throwback to old school summer cinema that I wish we could see more often.
Rating: 7 out of 10
