Nostalgia is a double-edged sword. At its most effective, it’s one of cinema’s most potent emotional tools, capable of transporting us to another time with remarkable intimacy and immediacy. At its worst, it becomes a tacky, saccharine crutch, so superficially enamoured with the past that it ultimately consumes the film itself. From its opening frame, David Robert Mitchell’s dino-throwback, The End of Oak Street, feels alarmingly steeped in reverence and reference for the early 1980s. Yet, despite its obvious period trappings, it never becomes weighed down by its overt influences, deftly understanding that nostalgia is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Its tale of the already-on-thin-ice Platt family, who unsuspectingly find their suburban neighbourhood warped back to an era when dinosaurs and all manner of prehistoric fauna reigned supreme, recalls the Amblin-era family adventures that defined the decade—Films where PG-13 boundaries were blatantly pushed, and pure escapism carried terrifying thrills and genuine mortal stakes. But for all its obvious nods and influences, The End of Oak Street confidently forges its own layered identity and visual language, cementing an experience that not only feels ambitious for its impeccably framed Cretaceous carnage but for never losing sight of the people frantically caught within it.

The result is a film that not only cuts deep with its nail-biting suspense and shocking bouts of violence, but also with its staunch commitment to the interior lives of its characters. A blockbuster achievement of breathtaking, vicious spectacle and authentic, earnest human drama that puts the Jurassic World franchise to shame.

Set to Michael Giacchino’s rousing, transportive score—which recalls the whimsy and wonder of John Williams—The End of Oak Street opens with an image of ‘80s suburban bliss that is not quite what it seems. The Platt family patriarch, Greg (Ewan McGregor), sacrifices quality family time to earn extra cash delivering pizza, while the frustrated matriarch, Denise (Anne Hathaway), secretly writes novels while dreaming of escaping her life of suburban malaise. Meanwhile, Audrey (Maisy Stella), their daughter, helplessly dreams of studying at Cornell with Carl Sagan, as her younger brother, Brian (Christian Convery), gets chased by bullies and falls into constant trouble with the neighbours at the behest of his rowdy dog, Starbuck.

Yet, everything changes overnight with the crack of sudden, blinding noise and light. The family awakes to a power outage, the air feeling warmer and thicker, and a bevy of weird noises and gunshots perforating their surroundings. Each frame brims with meticulous detail, contrast, and texture, investing in its characters while patiently and cathartically disclosing the reality and gravity of their situation, as the Platts realize they’ve been transported back to prehistoric times. The foursome must evade becoming dinosaur lunch while confronting long-held secrets in a desperate bid to somehow make it back to their timeline.

Mitchell’s film revels in one intensely engrossing sequence after another, his sharp lens taking hold of the audience with Hitchcockian command as he cements himself a masterful orchestrator of suspense and set-piece construction. He seamlessly navigates from tense, spine-tingling lows to exuberant, crowd-pleasing highs, punctuated by grave, out-of-left-field twists that make anything feel possible—even the death of a principal character. Sumptuous split-diopters, creeping tracking zooms, slick overheads, and impeccably choreographed unbroken takes create an immersive visual experience that feels like Steven Spielberg by way of Brian De Palma. It’s a rich, rewarding endeavour at every scale, attentive to the tiniest details—a knife in colossal python clattering against a window, for instance—as much as its most expansive displays of spectacle.

It all culminates in a film that, at its core, is about a family in denial, the secrets that turn homes into emotional quagmires, and an ode to the parental sacrifices that keep families together. McGregor and Hathaway share a tender, honest interplay, seamlessly traversing the thin, tragic line between what’s said and what remains unspoken—most poignantly, and hilariously, in a heartfelt sequence revolving around dinosaur fornication. A rare movie miracle that transcends its influences, proving as awe-inspiring in its smallest moments as it is in its most gargantuan.

The End of Oak Street releases August 14th.