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When I wrote about the last Jurassic Park film, last year’s Jurassic World: Rebirth which was the seventh in the series, I objected to the fact that no one else seemed to be making dinosaur movies and that it would have been better if that had just been a different story featuring giant lizards, separate to the ongoing franchise. Now that someone has done just that I have to say that I wish this had been a Jurassic Park film.

Specifically I wish it had been 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion, or at least this is what that film should have been. Prior to that movie it was established that all of the dinosaurs had been released into mainland America yet the promise of that, of seeing people in towns and cities having to contend with T-Rexs going through their bins and pterodactyls crapping on their cars (and probably a few other cohabitation issues) was almost completely scrapped in favour of having yet another angry monsters in a park adventure (sadly it didn’t even do that very well). What The End of Oak Street does is give us exactly this and it is great to finally see blood thirsty prehistoric theropods and nasty carnivorous flying reptiles interacting with ill prepared humans. This might be the best film to feature dinosaurs since Spielberg’s original and it does give us that something new, a few scenes at the close of Jurassic Park 2 notwithstanding, that we’ve been wanting to see for a long time. 

There are no expert palaeontologists here then, no chaos theorists, rugged game keepers, misguided millionaires or evil CEOs. It’s just a mum, a dad, two kids, a few neighbours, a sweet old lady and the local librarian. These are the people who have to contend with the hungry dinos as their local area is unexpectedly over run with animals who are somehow suddenly not extinct anymore. The closest there is to a scientist here is a teenager who has read Carl Sagan (which does prove quite useful for a bit of theoretical exposition which turns out to be helpfully spot on – read books kids). 

The plot actually starts quite slowly but is effective in establishing the central family and building tension towards the first big dino reveal. To be honest we don’t need to get to know the parents much as it is enough that they are Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor but there are some character points that run as threads through the narrative. It is nice to see that she is by far the most effective of the two of them when it comes to dealing with their situation as well but both have their moments of bravery and stupidity. 

She is not Catwoman he is most certainly not Obi Wan Kenobi. The son and the daughter register less and certainly Maisy Stella does not leave the same impression she did in the film My Old Ass from a couple of years ago, but the lead cast are all good.

I guess a lot of people will be turning up for the dinosaurs though and while the camera doesn’t linger on the creatures as much as it does in a certain other movie franchise they are well realised. I don’t know that they are totally correct in terms of the latest fossil evidence but they do have feathers and fur which I understand is part of the modern thinking about these creatures. There is one big white one that has neither and I suspect there is very little scientific basis for this particular beastie but all of them are used effectively to create maximum tension and excitement. If you are one of these who is still freaked out by the kitchen scene with the velociraptors in the first Jurassic Park then you are going to spend a lot of this movie with your hands in front of your face. It is perhaps quite a high end 12A so consider that if taking children.

There is a nice cap on the end of the story as well that leans a little bit on a slightly different genre, and one other non dino movie from 1985 came to mind in a quite satisfying way. It raises a number of interesting questions that other commenters have written about so I will leave you to google those articles rather than explore it all here.

In the end though this movie isn’t a sequel, a prequel, a remake or an adaptation of anything; it is an original story which along with things like Sinners, Obsession, Backrooms, The Drama and Weapons shows that the age of established IP might be coming to an end. In contrast to the residents of Oak Street then, I’m very pleased to find that something big that once ruled this world hasn’t died out after all.