The End of Oak Street Is the Best Dinosaur Movie Since Jurassic Park

(L-R): Ewan McGregor as Greg and Anne Hathaway as Denise in The End of Oak Street —Warner Bros.

Pictures It's been 33 years since the enduring cinematic masterpiece that is Jurassic Park first hit theaters in June 1993.

Since that fateful summer, Steven Spielberg's sci-fi survival thriller has reigned supreme as the undisputed king of dinosaur films.

Now, The End of Oak Street is proving a dino blockbuster that serves up prehistoric horror with a side of genuine pathos is still a worthy endeavor.

Based on Michael Crichton's 1990 novel, Jurassic Park not only delivered some of the most memorable creature-feature scares in movie history, it was also a sharp cautionary tale about scientific hubris and the illusion of man's control over nature that was anchored by stellar performances from its core cast.

But over the course of numerous sequels and reboots, the franchise largely shifted away from resonant character drama in favor of high-octane action sequences and increasingly monstrous beasts.

Outside the Jurassic universe, there haven't been many successful attempts to reinvent the dinosaur wheel, so to speak.

Brian (Christian Convery) and Audrey (Maisy Stella) flee from an Allosaurus in The End of Oak Street. —Warner Bros.

Pictures Cue the release of The End of Oak Street , now in theaters.

Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell ( It Follows , Under the Silver Lake ) and produced by J.J.

Abrams ( Cloverfield , Super 8 ), Oak Street follows the Platt family—husband and wife Greg ( Ewan McGregor ) and Denise ( Anne Hathaway ), their two children Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery), and their rambunctious dog Starbuck (played by two different pups named Brisket and Buzz)—after a mysterious cosmic event transports their 1980s suburban Michigan neighborhood back to a primitive era.

What follows is a brutal fight for survival against aggressive, hungry, and carnivorous dinosaurs who quickly turn the community's previously idyllic streets into their own personal feeding ground.

There's an absurd scientific explanation for these events, but the movie doesn't spend too much time on it, which is mostly for the best within the bounds of its sub-100-minute run.

Instead, The End of Oak Street is a thriller about suburban unease and domestic tension, with a primeval twist.