This has been a curious year for genre cinema, with a slew of films with irresistible one-line premises that feel lifted directly from The Twilight Zone. Both Obsession and Backrooms have storylines indebted to specific episodes of the Rod Serling series (The Chaser and Little Girl Lost) and now David Robert Mitchell’s long-awaited fourth feature feels reminiscent of another (The Odyssey Of Flight 33). Heralded as the best dinosaur movie since Jurassic Park, The End of Oak Street feels fresh and original but isn’t quite the unqualified success some are claiming.

Best known for his unique genre pieces – It Follows remains one of the most original horror films of recent years, while the unapologetically strange Under the Silver Lake has developed a cult following – Mitchell isn’t an obvious choice to make a mainstream adventure film. Yet he gets the spirit of the late-eighties/early-nineties action-adventure romp without resorting to self-conscious nostalgia. There’s no imitation of John Carpenter fonts or synthy scores. Mitchell simply tells the story he wants to tell, and somehow captures the era in the process, without any explicit titlecards, relying on fashion, technology and movie posters to establish the eighties setting.

The Platts are, on the surface, a happy suburban family, consisting of parents Greg and Denise (Ewan McGregor, Anne Hathaway), daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella), son Brian (Christian Convery) and dog Starbuck. Beneath the veneer of happy families though, the family is on the verge of crisis – Greg and Denise’s relationship is strained, with him keeping busy making deliveries while she secretly channels her frustrations into writing a novel. These aren’t merely plot devices waiting to pay off (although inevitably they do) they add real texture to the characters.

With the tensions coming to a boil, it’s almost a relief when, after spotting mysterious lights in the sky, the residents of Oak Street wake to find themselves apparently transported to the Cretaceous era, and soon the Platts are facing monsters in their own street and everyday life becomes a fight for survival.

The performance styles of Hathaway and McGregor feel intentionally old-fashioned, with both delivering slightly heightened performances, that border on parody, but the actors themselves play their roles straight – there is no winking to the camera – even as McGregor spends much of the film in very short shorts.

McGregor’s relentlessly earnest, upbeat dad is a great character, and a natural fit for the actor, who plays Greg’s eternal optimism brilliantly. As the more pragmatic Denise, Hathaway is great where it counts but there are moments when she is curiously mannered and her performance becomes almost too performative. Part of me thinks it’s a conscious choice, to fit with the heightened drama of the science fiction elements, but it can be distracting.

Similarly, I’m not sure if the jokes are intentionally goofy or if Mitchell just really enjoys poop and dick jokes. The scene where McGregor and Hathaway stumble upon two Diplodocuses mating is a particularly baffling detour, and the humour cringey, meaning their reaction never rings true.

What makes this all the more jarring is the distinct lack of awe surrounding the dinosaurs. Even the most recent Jurassic World film paid lip service to the wonder of seeing these creatures brought back to life. Here there is no curiosity about them at all, they may as well be monsters from another dimension. And I know, while part of me wanted the characters to stop and marvel at the dinosaurs, a much louder interior voice appreciated the “who cares? they’re going to eat us!!” aspect of the film. Still, when the characters have the time to stop and laugh at dinosaurs mating, you’d think there would maybe be a moment when they acknowledge that real life dinosaurs are walking around them.

The dinosaur action is thrilling, action-packed and surprisingly mean-spirited at times, while the absence of any infrastructure makes for some subtle sight gags: an accidental fire caused by a car crash continues to spread in the background throughout the films second half. The CGI is incredible but the designs are inconsistent, some are great while at times you get the distinct feeling that they’re just whatever the plot demands at a given time.

Ultimately though, the film is more interested in the family dynamic than the prehistoric creatures. There’s something genuinely affecting about watching a family whose biggest threat isn’t the dinosaurs outside, but the things they have stopped saying to one another. Actually scratch that, it is probably the dinosaurs.

The film does suffer slightly from a very noticeable 12A rating, we never see any gore, and one particularly nasty death is effectively censored by some conveniently placed wooden boards. This doesn’t ruin the film, and there is at least one genuinely shocking death, but it does make it all feel a little toothless. Presumably the whole community has been eaten by dinosaurs, but we see maybe six or seven people actually eaten by dinosaurs. Still a massive improvement over Jurassic World: Dominion’s count of (checks notes) *two* dinosaur victims, but still, it would have been nice to see the fates of more characters. Meanwhile, the disappointingly neat ending softens the harsh, unforgiving tone established early on, while undermining the most daring sequence of the film.

I’ve seen a lot of people calling this the best dinosaur film since Jurassic Park, but I can’t agree, (I’m a big apologist for The Lost World.) What it does accomplish though, is making dinosaurs scary again. Not in the contrived, genetic engineering way of the Jurassic World films, but through the primal terror of being hunted by something that wants to eat you. One late sequence involving a prehistoric snake is terrifying for how silently it moves, and for it’s bland, impassive face. It’s not an evil monster, it just wants lunch, which is so much scarier.

Comparisons to Jurassic Park are ultimately beside the point , because at heart this is a very different kind of film. It’s more Joe Dante than Spielberg, closer to Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Gremlins or even Jumanji, an exhilarating adventure that’s a lot of fun as long as you don’t stop and think too hard about its implications. There are some serious moral questions at the end of The End Of Oak Street that are just brushed aside in order to sprint to the finale, leaving the characters looking surprisingly callous. It’s a cop out that leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

The End Of Oak Street is messy, occasionally ridiculous, with a tone that veers wildly, but also thrilling, hugely entertaining, beautifully made and makes dinosaurs genuinely scary again. AI dogs notwithstanding, it’s one of the most entertaining films of the year.