Long after we’re done and dusted, our bones liquefying into their constituent components over thousands of millennia into base fuel for a future, if as yet unevolved, post-human species, historians will note our singular obsession with the prehistoric creatures that lived, procreated, and, ultimately, perished millions of years before our mammalian ancestors arrived on the global scene, with skepticism bordering on baffled incredulity.
The fascination with a pre-human, prehistoric past held fast across more than two centuries, the widespread recognition of palentology (the study of fossils) as a scientific discipline, the rise of popular fiction centered on lost lands and undiscovered worlds filled with long-gone herbivores and carnivores (Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, among many), and eventually, the cinema with 1926’s The Lost World, an adaptation of Doyle’s 1912 groundbreaking novel, and 1932’s King Kong, the ur-text for every oversized, rampaging, often misunderstood behemoth that followed in subsequent decades.
Even as that fascination retreated into the pop-cultural background, prehistoric behemoths, remained ever ready for resurrection through a variety of forms and formats, from stop-motion animation to man-in-suit incarnations, all the way through the realism-embracing combination of animatronics and early-gen CGI of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, the immediate sequel, The Lost World (a direct nod to Doyle’s foundational novel), and every inferior sequel and/or soft reboot that followed over the subsequent decades.
Others might have created the tropes, others might have created the template, but Spielberg refined them, mixing his usual wonder and awe with the terrifying spectacle of prehistoric dinosaurs in all shapes and sizes, revived for their entertainment value and profit potential, turning on their creators, hunting, stalking, and ultimately devouring their human prey (or at least trying). Lessons learned, of course, were unlearned almost immediately: A film about the dangers of resurrecting long-gone life-forms into commodities for commercialized profit became, in turn, so profitable that an immediate sequel was greenlit within weeks of release.
While the sequels, a soft reboot, and the follow-ups to the soft reboot continued to chase the narcotic highs of Spielberg’s justifiably beloved take, they’ve failed more than they’ve succeeded, emphasizing CGI-driven spectacle over the rudiments of character development or story construction, each subsequent inferior entry a sad reminder that there’s only one Spielberg and only one Jurassic Park (or at least there should have been).
But as long as our imaginations remain captivated by pre-human prehistory, especially the combustible mix of dinosaurs and humans, so will nostalgia-driven entries like writer-director David Robert Mitchell’s (Under the Silver Lake, It Follows, The Myth of the American Sleepover) latest, not quite greatest, addition to his filmography, The End of Oak Street.
An Amblin-flavored entry with a decided mean streak, The End of Oak Street leans heavily on nostalgia, nostalgia for Amblin’s suburban-set ‘80s-‘90s heyday, but also nostalgia for the 1980s decade itself, an era romanticized to the point of a reality disconnect through the recently ended Stranger Things Netflix series. Anyone who’s lived through the 1980s might feel a twinge of nostalgia for the music, literature, or films for that era, but they also recognize the socio-economic turning point Reagan’s America represented for a middle class facing an existential crisis of its own.
The End of Oak Street nods once or twice towards the socio-economic realities facing middle-class Americans, specifically in patriarch, Greg Platt (Ewan McGregor), hiding his unemployment (layoff from an auto plant) from his wife, Denise (Anne Hathaway), a frustrated, wannabe novelist, Audrey (Maisy Stella), their STEM-obsessed teen daughter (she worships at the altar of Carl Sagan), and Brian (Christian Convery), a teen with anger-management issues and a possible future as a guest in one of Reagan’s federal penitentaries.
After a block party on their cul-de-sac goes predictably sour, the Platts retreat to their modest home, expecting nothing more than mild headaches or stomach discomforts. Except, of course, they wake up to an entirely different reality: The previous night’s lightning storm has left the Platts and their adjoining neighbors displaced in time, if not in place. They’re no longer in Reagan’s America. They’ve been shuttled through time in a distant, prehistoric past, one filled with all kinds of familiar beasts, most of them equipped with sharp claws, even sharper teeth, and empty bellies.
Rather than focus on community efforts to pool their resources and decide on a plan of survival, if not escape, the Platts initially decide to barricade their home and remain indoors for the duration. Where Greg argues for a faith-based approach to their predicament (just hope and wish they’ll find a way out), Denise argues for a plan, any plan that doesn’t involve doing nothing. Unfortunately, she’s not particularly imaginative, and in a development that was probably driven as much by budget as it was the rating (PG-13 instead of R), the Platts spend a good deal of time wandering somewhat aimlessly through their neighborhood, running at the first sign of danger (a reasonable response), and returning home.
Except for an obnoxious, dog-hating next-door neighbor, Mel Jacobs (P.J. Byrne), and a newly orphaned teen in their cul-de-sac, Jeannette Christiansen (Jordan Alexa Davis), other survivors seem far and far between. When they do appear, leaving home for work, unaware of the radical changes in their immediate environment, they don’t last long, becoming insta-meals for prehistoric carnivores. Even then, The End of Oak Street feels far too empty, far too sparsely populated for a neighborhood that practically teemed with life a day or two earlier. (That sparseness could have been the result of a PG-13 rating that would have otherwise disallowed a high, bloody body count.)
What’s left of the film’s plot turns on leaving their home for a variety of ill-thought reasons, encountering a prehistoric carnivore, or four, and immediately running home. As the family’s resident science nerd (another ‘80s-era trope), Audrey posits a theory involving wormholes as the cause for their current predicament, a theory born out by the sudden appearance and disappearance of portals back into the present. They only have to survive long enough to find a portal, leap head- or feet-first into said portal, and find their way home, Land of the Lost-style.
Mitchell handles the usual assortment of shocks and scares, the chases and near-escapes, skillfully, showing an admirable ability to handle relatively large, complex set pieces without losing a sense of scale, scope, or spatial geography. The same, however, can’t be said for the abrupt, awkward tonal shifts or Mitchell’s seeming embrace of a noticeably dark, darkly comic development; Mitchell reverses it completely in the final moments, presumably to assuage overly sensitive audiences who would only accept an Amblin-flavored ending sans any meanness or cruelty.
The End of Oak Street opens on Friday, August 14th, via Warner Bros. Check the official site for local showtimes.
