This is a fun B-movie by design, yet it has been given a substantial push by the studio, a $35m production budget and opened in a surprising number of theatres (3500 in the US, compared to Ant-Man 3’s 4300 and Creeds 4000). There was a lot of hype for this and in most cases I would say that would raise expectations, but the movie is called “cocaine Bear” so not so much here.
The movie doesn’t really focus on any one particular lead though Sari (Keri Russel) is probably the closest to a protagonist. The Cocaine Bear itself starts out as the villain of the piece but by the end has largely passed that mantle on to Ray Liotta’s “Sid”. That switch changes the tone of the film somewhat from a monster horror to a family adventure film (with added gore). Effectively it ends up as comedy adventure with over the top gore which would this a good double bill with “Violent Night” from 2022.
We’ve Got a Taste for You!
The early part of the movie is where it is at it’s best. Here the rest of the ensemble cast take center stage and do their best to survive against the cocaine driven beast. We get a mixture of comedy moments and violent gore with a few notable highlights (Such as the ambulance scene). The bear itself looks great and is pretty convincing when it needs to be. The production budget was quite high for a horror movie, twice the cost of “A Quiet Place” (2018) for example, so I would expect the effects to be top notch and I was not disappointed.
The plot is pretty straight forward, but a movie like this doesn’t really need complexity. It does what it needs to. The actors performances were okay, some performances were less convincing then others, but again for this kind of film it was fine. Elizabeth Banks is still early in her career as a director and with two clangers to her name (If you include her segment on 2013’s abysmal “Movie 43”) and the music drama “Pitch Perfect” she seemed like a strange choice, but I respect her going for it and she did okay. Much like with the actors, it could probably have been better but it was good enough for a horror comedy about a cocaine addicted black bear.
Conclusion
A straight forward movie that doesn’t take itself seriously and does what it can with a story based on a real life event where a bear ate some cocaine and basically just died. It won’t bother the Oscars and it probably won’t end up as a cult classic, but if you like the combination of laughs and gore, it’s well worth checking out. 6/10
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