The End of Oak Street: A Stick of “Dino”-mite!

The review below was written by Noah. It's been a long time since a respectable dinosaur movie hit theaters.  Not the 200 million years our protagonists, the Platt family, travel when they wake to find their neighborhood relocated to the Cretaceous, but a solid decade, going back to the first Jurassic World in 2015.  I wouldn't count the three released since, least of all Dominion in 2022, where Universal gave in to the impulse every franchise reboot seems constitutionally bound to obey: make the new cast meet the old one. The early minutes foreshadow family conflicts lurking beyond the glow of their idyllic suburb, and, to the film's credit, it doesn't abandon them once the predators arrive, waging jihad on everyone in set-piece after set-piece; it threads them through the whole of the Platts' journey.  The most immediate is how the parents assess their predicament.  Greg (Ewan McGregor) insists everything's going to be fine on the strength of "faith," delivered with the confidence of a kid who just got pantsed at recess, doubling down when his son, Brian (Christian Convery), backs him up.  Greg's wife, Denise (Anne Hathaway), and his daughter, Audrey (Maisy Stelle), understand exactly how screwed they are. The film switches seamlessly between levity, carnage, and relief, never resting long enough to let any one register settle — including the moment each family member realizes it's every-man-for-himself now, screams pushed down and out of mind.  It still finds room to forge a redemption arc for each of them. Overall, a thrill to see in theaters (the B.S. is considerably better), or a cozy night when it’s available to rent or stream.