Going into The End of Oak Street, I thought there was a good chance it would be a little bit silly, with an overuse of CGI. Anne Hathaway seems to be in quite a lot of stuff at the moment, and whilst I didn't really recognise the children, that wasn't necessarily a problem. With younger actors, though, it can always be a bit touch and go whether they are going to be good or not. However, coming out of this film, I have to be honest, I was surprisingly impressed. The CGI wasn't too bad, and the whole thing felt like something we might have seen years ago, when adventure films were a little bit more common.

The End of Oak Street sees a family's end of their street transported to what is essentially dinosaur time. As situations for a struggling couple to find themselves in go, that is certainly something different. For me, though, it wasn't really the dinosaurs that made this film work, it was the family at the centre of it. There was something about watching them come together and experience this situation which reminded me of the family adventure films I grew up watching in the 90s. It had some good emotional scenes and a little bit of comedy, but luckily it didn't overdo it like something you might find in Marvel. It captured quite a lot without feeling the need to push everything too far.

Hathaway and Ewan McGregor played the struggling couple well, with McGregor being a highlight for me. Being thrown into this situation forces them to find each other again, with those heightened experiences bringing out feelings which are still there, even if resentment has got in the way. I liked that underneath the adventure there was something about family bonding and relationships. It wasn't just about getting through a dangerous situation, but remembering what these people mean to each other. The children's acting was fine too. There wasn't anything I would call award-winning, but the family side of the film worked, which was important for what it was trying to do.

That being said, one thing I wasn't overly keen on was the look of the dinosaurs. The film goes for feathers and this newer approach to what dinosaurs looked like, which may well be more accurate, but for me it took away some of their impact. I think we are so used to seeing dinosaurs look a certain way in films that these felt more like giant birds. Sadly, that made them less scary than they perhaps could have been. I am not saying they shouldn't look accurate, but it is something that takes a bit of getting used to, and here it took the edge off.

There were also a few silly moments which didn't really make sense. Some people seemed to die a bit too easily, and there is a moment involving a jump into a portal where suddenly getting the timing right becomes a problem, despite everyone else seeming to manage it just fine. Little inconsistencies like that stood out, but luckily they weren't enough to ruin the film for me.

The score was composed by Michael Giacchino, and I thought it was fine. He brings that slightly retro feel which works well with what this film was going for, something I associate with his work on The Incredibles and Up. I think he was a good choice, but sadly there wasn't anything here which made me want to go home and listen to it. It wasn't bad, it just did its job. For a film which captured that older adventure feel so well, it would have been nice to have a score that stayed with me too.

Overall, The End of Oak Street isn't groundbreaking. The story is interesting and different, even if it is fairly basic on the whole, and there are certainly a few rough edges. However, it took me back to those classic family films I grew up watching in the 90s, and that was its real strength. I like a film with a moral to its story that avoids politics and is just about humans being humans, their relationships and their values. I think this film touched on that well. Three stars for an adventure which was much more enjoyable than I expected, even if the dinosaurs did look a little too much like giant birds.