The End Of Oak Street - Movie Review

We're balls deep in Anne Hathaway summer, and I've already seen eight movies with her this year alone. The Odyssey, Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2 six times, and this newest entry into her filmography, The End of Oak Street. I'm joking. I didn't see The Devil Wears Prada 2 six times. I saw it five. But the question I'm here to answer today is if The End of Oak Street is worth five or six watches, let alone one. Sure, it's got smoking hot Anne Hathaway. Sure, it's got equally smoking hot Ewan McGregor. And double sure, it's got the smoking hot T-Rex. And while I love me a good dinosaur, I need me something more. Does it have the goodies I crave? This is like me fondling the balls of a giant. I'm going to let you know in a spoiler-free review for The Last House on the End of Shelby Oak Street. I've seen a lot of movies. They're starting to blend together. Let's begin. Hold on to your butts because director David Robert Mitchell has a brand new bag, and this one features some scary-ass dinosaurs. Previously, he did a little film called It Follows, a film I happen to quite enjoy in the horror space. But how does he fare now? Kind of switching up the genre to a survival thriller from a straight-up horror show. He's also playing with a much larger stack of cash. He's got J.J. Abrams backing him, and a lot of early reviews were likening this film to a Steven Spielberg of the '80s and '90s, which is appropriate since this flick takes place in 1982. But simply having a white-ass family in the '80s is not enough to make me think it's Spielberg. There was a rawness and a wholesome element to those '80s flicks. You felt like you were part of the family. They didn't wait for their turn to speak all the time. They tripped over each other. It felt natural. It felt organic. So, for the critics saying that this film feels like Steven Spielberg back in the day, they're full of [ __ ] To me, End of Oak Street felt like a movie that was emulating and trying to be one of those old films, but not really getting the ingredients blended up quite right. The plot of this is pretty straightforward. We're following the Platt family. Anne Hathaway plays Denise. Ewan McGregor plays Greg. Anne Hathaway plays the strong-willed wife, Denise, who knows how to carry a gun and rock a mean dress. Ewan McGregor plays Greg. He plays a very positive husband and father with a couple skeletons in his closet that will get revealed later in the flick. They have two lovely kids, Audrey and Brian. Audrey really wants to attend college at Cornell, but unless some money tree sprouts up overnight in the backyard, that's not going to happen. Although, the family will find out a different type of tree is going to sprout up overnight in the backyard. In fact, a whole bunch of them are, but we'll get there in a second. We got to talk about Brian. Brian, um, he really loves his dog. That's pretty much his entire character is he loves his dog. The dog's name is Starbuck, based off the popular character from the TV show Battlestar Galactica. And if you thought, "Oh, that's a fun little name for a dog to have. I like that show." You might be like me and go, "Yeah, it was fun one or two times, but they say Starbuck 4,000 times in this [ __ ] movie and it gets really old really fast." "Popsy, where's Starbuck? Mama, papaya, where's Starbuck at? Sister, have you seen Starbuck? STARBUCK! STARBUCK! STAR SHUT THE [ __ ] UP!" ACTUALLY, I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID. Brian has a lot going on in this movie. Not only does he have a dog he loves, he's also an archer who has his trusty bow and quill of arrows at his side, just ready for a thwack, total Limp Bizkit shot. He's going to attempt using that thing several times in the movie and, uh, he's no Robin Hood, let's just say that. Yeah, uh, okay, nice try there, Katniss. How about you put the bow and arrow down and just try to run for a change. What you're doing is not working. All right, so he's got the dog thing. He's got the poor archery skills. He also noticed a new girl moving across the street. She's a cutie. He wants to put the moves on her. Hope there's time before the world comes to an end. Also, at some point off camera before the movie even started up, he broke a kid's arm and his older brother's pissed about it. And so broken arm kid's brother is going to be on the prowl throughout the movie. You're not sure where he's going to show up. And quite frankly, it's weird that you even care because there's dinosaurs running around. That takes me to the crux of the problem here. We've established the characters. We got some loving parents who uh they're maybe not so loving these days. There's There's some chips are down stuff going on with the relationship. The teenage kids are at awkward points in their life. They're dealing with love. They're dealing with uh the potential of college on the horizon. And all of them are equally having a hard time dealing with the new neighbors because they're prehistoric in nature. And no, I don't mean they're old. Well, they are. In fact, they're really old because as it turns out, some sort of phenomenon has taken place which has transported these people into The Land Before Time. Don't lose your way for each passing day. You've come so far. Don't [ __ ] throw it away. I don't know if those are the lyrics, but Land Before Time was a kick-ass movie. So yeah, they're going to be dealing with the new neighbors that are dinosaurs, feathered friends. We got feathery raptors. We got the T-Rex. And we have a whole bunch of other creatures that I don't want to give away, but one of them does look like a really really large dildo. This big fat slithery white thing is pulse This This big chunky fat slithery thing is going in and out of rooms, globbing over the sides of pools and around trees, and now quite frankly, it's the only way I can achieve climax. Subscribe. All right, let's get professional for a little bit now. Let's put our big boy pants on. So, this film is very fun. It is very engaging. It also has a lot of your classic dumb people doing dumb things, which drives me up a wall. Now, before I get into the complaint department, I just want to point out that I was very much enjoying the film from a superficial standpoint. Visually, it looks really good. There's some money on the screen. You can see it being utilized very well. That said, I don't ever really get the feeling they're dealing with real dinosaurs. As impressive as the CG is, and sometimes it's very very lifelike, I don't get that weight to the creatures. As they're like ramming their heads into doors and never being able to get through them. I mean, there's a point where several large raptor bird things are crashing into the front door of a house, and it's just Ewan McGregor holding them back. I Listen, I know homes were built better in the '70s and '80s, but come on. We got to We got to have a little bit of realism here. You're telling me one of these dinosaurs could just crash through that house. The music is popping off pretty well, too. There was a good score here. It wasn't anything truly memorable, but it made itself known, and it did keep everything kind of elevated. So, I was all in on the music. As far as the variety of dinosaurs are concerned, there is a decent amount, and there are some pretty cool, you you sections of the film. A couple of them felt like they were a little too lifted from the original Jurassic Park. One specifically where the couple's hiding in the car and the dinosaurs are running over it. You just replace that car with a log and I'm transported back there in 1993 again. As far as the acting's concerned, we you know, we're dealing mainly with the main four cast, but there are some supporting characters. There's the douchey neighbor, there's the gentle, nice, sage old woman. They all have parts to play and they play them very well. never bothered by anybody in there. The bully character, it's a very stupid, pointless subplot that thankfully only pops up a couple of times, but it was such an unnecessary inclusion. I have no idea why it exists. The girlfriend love interest also kind of completely unnecessary. She has a bigger role, but for what reason? Unclear. She doesn't add to the narrative at all. And this is one of the very few times I'm watching a movie and I'm actively rooting for a dog to die. It's not Starbucks' fault. This freaking kid is so annoying how much he asks about Starbuck who who runs away pretty early on. "Where is Starbuck going to be okay? Papa, we got TO GO SAVE STARBUCK." SHUT UP, KID. THERE'S FREAKING DINOSAURS RUNNING AROUND. OH, there is one side character. It's, you know, the the poor kid. He's going through puberty really hard. I don't know if that was the intent when casting for this, but the kid whose arm is broken and in a cast, he is always at full-blown high-pitched puberty voice. It is out of control. "Where is the kid? He broke my arm." "I'm always up here." Like, if you think what I just did is annoying, you're going to have to deal with that for a good minute straight. And then watch as the blood pools on your shoulders from your ears. I do think this movie is easily better than the last couple Jurassic turd flicks. The the bar is so low, that thing's straight in hell now. It does fall pretty far shy from great. I would say this falls in the category of a perfectly fine time as long as you can forgive some really bad decision-making, especially around the middle act when one kid makes such a dumb choice that it just screws up the entire family's night. Yeah, you can't help but be frustrated by all the events as they play out thinking, "Yeah, we shouldn't even be in this situation if not for Timmy Tough Knuckles over here." The story is squarely saved by the action set pieces, all these little moments of dinosaurs running amok through this little town picking off neighbors. There's lots of little stuff going on in the backgrounds of scenes to keep your eyes moving around and you're you're a little giddy and excited. If I was a teenager, I think I would really eat this up. If I was even younger, I think I would be fully invested and think this is badass because there's lots of cool dinosaur stuff in this. The movie's a little over an hour and a half, so it's got a good run time. It is PG-13, which is unfortunate, but you know, they want the families to come out. I will say it was a little harder PG-13 than I thought it would be. There is some blood. There is one or two kind of like, "Oh [ __ ] they got away with that? That's cool." It's still a far cry from some of the carnage I would have loved to see in this flick. And it does give me a little pause when it comes to the tone of the film since most of it is kind of light and the dinosaurs don't feel that threatening. I mean, these people are kind of walking around them at times throwing [ __ ] at them to get their attention. They don't seem to be that scared even though they're yelling and running and Anne Hathaway's always putting in the work in her performance, but they're still like right up in their grills most of the time. I mean, why are they even going outside at all at this point? There are a couple of those tiny little violent parts that made me go, "Oh, well, [ __ ] This feels so different now. This this kind of feels out of place." When I just saw them a scene earlier throwing lamps at dinosaurs and kicking them and stuff. It just It's a little odd. If you're one of those people that get annoyed that things aren't explained well, prepare to be annoyed cuz this is very very loosey-goosey as far as any of the sci-fi elements are concerned. [ __ ] happens basically is what the movie says. [ __ ] happens and we got to figure out how to adjust. I'm okay with that if the movie is engaging enough, if there's enough action, if there's enough fun parts, if there's some decent dialogue and acting. You know, I recently just watched The Last House on Netflix, which was trash from top to bottom. I said the same thing. I wouldn't I don't care so much that The Last House gave absolutely zero effort in explaining what was happening with the magical rain and the sea creatures, but on top of it not explaining anything, there's also just not a lot of great parts. It's not a very entertaining movie. The acting wasn't good. The characters were pretty unlikable. At least with this film, we do have excellent performances. We do have at least a set of four people that are pleasant. They seem to enjoy each other's company. And even though mom and dad are on hard times, you can tell there's a connection there. You can tell there is love still. And so it does help drive the movie forward. There is plenty to criticize about this movie and I desperately wanted it to be phenomenal. I wanted it to be this generation's Jurassic Park. It kind of probably is all negatives aside because there's just not that many good dinosaur movies out there. So, by default, being at least competent enough makes it a big winner. Makes it the king of the crop. I will probably do a spoiler video on this in a few days. So, if you haven't already, please think of subbing to the show Adam Does Movies on YouTube. I'm on Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you watch or listen. My overall thoughts? Good enough. Not great enough like I was hoping it would be. Let me know yours though. Please put them in the comments below. 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