Rating: 7.8
TL:DR - Cocaine Bear is quite honestly exactly what you’d expect it to be - in a good way! It embraces its B-movie campy status, and while it doesn’t always get as crazy as I would have hoped… it definitely delivers on being a ridiculously good time!
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Film Info:
Premise: An oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converge on a Georgia forest where a huge black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine.
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Universal
Directed by Elizabeth Banks
Written by Jimmy Warden
Cast: Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Christian Convery, Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklyn Prince, Ray Liotta, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Kristofer Hivju
Runtime: 1hr 35min
Rating: 18A
Comedy, Thriller
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IMDb Rating: 6.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 70%
RT Audience Score: 75%
RT Critic Average: 6.2/10
RT Audience Average: 3.9/5
Metacritic Score: 52
CinemaScore: B-
Letterboxd: 3.4/5
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Fun Fact: "Cocaine Bear" was intended to be a temporary working title. The producers decided to release it under that name as they "...couldn't think of anything else".
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Review:
written by Tyler Park
“Cocaine Bear has saved cinema!” “Cocaine Bear is a flawless masterpiece!” …said no one ever. But who cares! You know what you’re getting into with this one, and you’ll either be on its wavelength, or you won’t be. Luckily, I 100% was and had a blast! It’s a solid B-movie full of camp offering exactly what audiences want from it — an absolutely insane bear wreaking gory, bloody havoc. And when it does this, I was so in! It’s like a slasher movie where the killer is a bear who did cocaine! Some of the kills are even so outrageous that they end up being pretty funny! Sure, this is definitely full of ridiculousness and absurdity, but it delivers on its promise of being an extremely entertaining time at the movies! It was funny, gory and was a straight-up wild time… in certain areas.
The movie unfortunately only delivers whenever the titular bear is on screen. The good part about this is that it is a good chunk of the movie, and the movie is at its peak when it fully commits to the drug-fuelled chaos! The not-so-good part: the scenes in between were somewhat dull. I definitely didn’t care about the human characters all that much, and just found myself wanting to get back to the bear and see who it was going to kill next. The performances were overall fine and I quite liked the cast, but I found some of the actors played it a bit too seriously (Keri Russell), while others knew exactly what type of movie this was and played it accordingly (Alden Ehrenreich, Kristofer Hivju). There was a lot of this unevenness, not just in acting but in story and tone, and the film had a wonky structure. The film has a lot of storylines that really drag out the pacing, some were entertaining and some were not. And it sucks that this kind of held the film back from being the completely wild and crazy time I thought it was going to be. When the bear isn’t on screen, it was really hard to care as moments without the bear were only lightly amusing. The screenwriters weren’t too clever with the jokes, and when the movie wasn’t being completely outrageous it seemed like the movie found it hard to be funny. It felt a bit like an overlong SNL sketch, where it tried to flesh out its premise too much which takes away from the joke of it. The movie is at its best when it is going way over the top, and frankly, it could have gone even crazier, even more stupid and mindless. But still, despite me wishing it was overall more tonally balanced, I still enjoyed it.
I wanted a stupid fun time with a bear murdering people, and for 75% of the time I got that! The kills are brutal and outrageous — I was laughing while my jaw was on the floor at the surprising amount of gore! I just loved seeing the bear murder people! Every time the bear was on screen the movie was extremely entertaining. It’s campy, and the film embraces this. It thrives when it sticks to this camp and the 80s-esque horror! Plus, with a runtime of only 95 minutes, even at the dull points this movie was never boring, it is consistently entertaining! I wish it was a little more balanced, but hey I can’t really complain can I? I got the movie I signed up for, and I still came out of it loving the ridiculousness of the premise! I’m so happy Elizabeth Banks was able to pull it off and craft this wild camp-fest of a film with some really fun moments! All hail the return of the campy, hour-and-a-half, B-movie! It's pure dumb fun, and if you think the idea of a bear getting high and going on a killing spree sounds fun (like I did) I’d definitely recommend checking this out, it's a really great time! Yes, it has issues and overall isn’t an amazing film by any means, but really who wants a cinematic masterpiece with this type of film? We just want a totally nonsensical yet extremely entertaining time where nothing else matters besides the bear who did cocaine.
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