REVIEW: ‘The End of Oak Street’ delivers dinosaur thrills and powerful lessons – but edgy content 

Greg Platt is a middle-aged man in a suburban neighborhood fighting for survival in 1982 America. That’s what happens when you lose your job and income with a wife and two kids depending on you – not to mention a house and car requiring monthly payments.

Greg does what anyone else in his position might do, stringing together a series of odd jobs to make ends meet, including delivering pizzas. Unfortunately, though, Greg doesn’t share his financial struggles with his wife, Denise, who is clueless about his career woes.

Greg and Denise, it seems, don’t communicate like they once did. In fact, they argue so much that their children – Audrey and Brian – think they’re likely heading for divorce.

It seems the only thing that could save their marriage is a trial of some sort – something to shake them out of their marital doldrums and make them appreciate one another again.

Such a trial arrives one night when their house and the entire neighborhood lose electricity during a storm, sending the frightened kids downstairs and prompting the family to sleep together in the den. Things don’t return to normal the next morning, when they discover they’ve lost water, too – and that their dog, Starbuck, has escaped from his leash.

Greg and Denise step out of their front door to separately canvass the neighborhood yet soon realize things are anything but normal.

Denise discovers their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Huddleston, dead on the floor of her home, with mysterious bloody animal tracks leading away. Greg, meanwhile, stumbles upon a massive dinosaur-like creature covered with feathers – a creature that soon spots Greg and sends him racing back to his house. A frantic Denise meets him there, where they lock the doors and ask themselves: What is going on?

The new movie The End of Oak Street (PG-13) tells the story of the Platts, who soon learn that they and their neighbors have been mysteriously transported to the age of dinosaurs – and that they’re on the menu.

Once again, Greg is fighting for survival.

It’s a combination of Jurassic Park, Back to the Future and Stranger Things, giving us a fresh spin on the decades-old dinosaur genre. It includes the dinosaur-chasing-human thrills we all love – and, yes, several people get eaten – but it offers a bit of mystery, too, as we and the Platts try to solve the puzzle of how they got there and, more importantly, how they’ll return to 1982.

The Platts board up their home in an act of desperation but soon realize that to search for answers – and find food – they’ll have to venture outside. Along the way, this stressful adventure does what trials often do: It forces the family to pull together and reminds them what they nearly lost. Mom and dad join forces to protect the kids and, increasingly, one another.

It’s a powerful reminder for moviegoers to focus less on life’s distractions and more on the people and the blessings right in front of us.

Unfortunately for moviegoing parents, The End of Oak Street also comes with some significant content concerns. It includes more coarse language than the typical Jurassic Park movie (details below). It presents an uncomfortably lengthy scene of two dinosaurs mating – so lengthy, in fact, that Denise snaps a picture of Greg posing in front of the prehistoric duo. Of course, it contains plenty of violence, too, with dinosaurs biting off limbs and even – in one scene – someone’s head.

The film also gives us a couple of religious-focused scenes, beginning when Greg tells the family that “God’s not gonna let us die here” – and later when a neighbor girl who attends a Catholic school asks Audrey if she believes in God. (Both girls indicate they don’t but Brian quickly chimes in that he does.)

The End of Oak Street has plenty to offer moviegoers, blending action, mystery and powerful lessons into an original story. Families, though, may find its edgier content a bridge too far.

Rated PG-13 for some strong violent content, bloody images, some strong language and suggestive material. Language details: F-word (1), s–t (8), h-ll (11), d–n (7), a– (1), SOB (1), OMG (3), misuse of “God” (1).

Entertainment rating: 3 out of 5 stars.