It turns out I did need to see Anne Hathaway fight a Tyrannosaurus rex — in the same way that I needed to see her be a pop star in “Mother Mary,” return to Runway magazine in “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” and wait for her husband to return from war in “The Odyssey.” Whether or not I need to see her in a Colleen Hoover adaptation later this fall remains to be seen, but at this point, I’m not sure any of her other performances this year are going to top her turn in “The End of Oak Street,” the aforementioned T. rex fighting movie.

Hathaway’s performance is the best part of David Robert Mitchell’s suburbs-meets-Paleolithic era action flick, and the key to making it work. She has a terrific scream queen ability that’s rarely been put to use, plus, she’s right up there with Shelly Duvall in “The Shining” when it comes to frantic mother acting, and with Laura Dern for dinosaur reacting. But what she’s delivering in “The End of Oak Street” is a multifaceted performance that encompasses the layers of earnestness and sly knowingness that Mitchell is trying to express with this genre exercise.

“The End of Oak Street” (note the double meaning of the title) is Mitchell doing silly Spielberg drag, classic Amblin Entertainment with a big ol’ wink and a nudge. It’s set in 1982, the year “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” came out, and is a kind of cosmic time warp “Jurassic Park,” where the dinos invade our world instead of the other way around, very “Land of the Lost,” which has been made and remade for Gen X, millennials and Gen Z. There are moments of sheer ridiculous comedy and and an element of campy cheesiness inherent to the “Pleasantville”-esque suburban artifice that Mitchell presents for deconstruction, but Hathaway delivers the comedy and the emotional devastation in equal measure.

Mitchell tackled the suburbs with his 2013 debut, “The Myth of the American Sleepover,” but rather than gently teasing this image apart, he’d like now to rip the facade to shreds, by tooth and claw. We learn the picture-perfect family isn’t so perfect even before the dinosaurs show up, leaving giant piles of excrement and bloodied carcasses in the streets.

Before the domestic drama turns apocalyptic survival thriller, Hathaway plays the unsatisfied Denise, married to the somewhat smarmy Greg (Ewan McGregor). Their kids are Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery), up to typical teenage stuff you’d likely see in a Stephen King adaptation. The family is crumbling, Denise and Greg on the brink of divorce, but when their neighborhood is suddenly transported via a series of time warp portals to a prehistoric jungle filled with apex predators, they have to come together to fight for survival.

Yes, we’re all puzzling through why the guy who last made “Under the Silver Lake” (a shaggy-dog L.A. hangout noir) and “It Follows” (a moody psychosexual horror) has now delivered a broad family blockbuster with dinosaurs. But Mitchell does love to use popular genre as part of his storytelling, and things have been feeling rather apocalyptic lately.

The score by Michael Giacchino does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of tone and expectation, especially with the layers of artifice we’re working with. It cajoles and leads with a twinkly, fun vibe, then gives us something earnestly suspenseful, but it’s almost Giacchino doing a parody of himself.

Everyone seems to be in on the joke that “The End of Oak Street” is a sketch or a simulacrum of a Spielberg movie, baked in irony. It’s very fun to see with a crowd, laughing and cheering along at the thrills and chills of this creature feature filled with furry, feathered, slimy dinos. Mitchell pulls off the suspenseful storytelling with outlandish set pieces, but he doesn’t entirely pull off the punchline of his winky genre exercise. It needs one more layer of metaphor or deconstruction, or another twist or a bleaker ending. He’s both commenting on this kind of movie and straightforwardly just making this kind of movie, but “The End of Oak Street” lands somewhat awkwardly in between the two.

It is an esoteric and cerebral filmmaker’s idea of a broad piece of pulpy entertainment, but Mitchell’s secret weapon is shotgun wielding Annie. As unhappy but highly competent housewife Denise, Hathaway conveys everything he needs her to — brave, devastated, absurdly humorous — all at the same time. Her performance is emblematic of the extraordinarily difficult nuance Mitchell is trying to pull off here, and if the film works, it’s thanks to her. McGregor is a bit too broad, the kids too straight. But the ridiculous dinosaurs and Oscar winner Hathaway are on the money. She shoots to kill and never misses the sweet spot.

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'THE END OF OAK STREET'

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for some strong violent content, bloody images, some strong language and suggestive material)

Running time: 1:39

How to watch: In theaters Aug. 14

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