Inspired by a true story, an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converge in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine.
FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://www.msbreviews.com/movie-reviews/cocaine-bear-review
"COCAINE BEAR offers what one expects from it: an absolutely INSANE bear wreaking gory, bloody havoc while also doing the stupidest things imaginable. A totally nonsensical yet extremely entertaining time where nothing else matters besides the bear who did cocaine."
Rating: B-
OK, so the plot wears a little thin after a while but I really did quite enjoy this daft action adventure film. It all starts with a bloke tossing bags from an aircraft before he clonks his head on the door whilst leaving, mid-air, and next thing the police are identifying the body and a large duffle bag of cocaine. Where's the rest of it? Well out near the original "glory hole" at Cagney's Cavern a bear is having the time of her life - and snacking on just about anything that crosses her path - including Scandi tourists as an appetiser! A couple of kids "Dee Dee" (Brooklyn Prince) and "Henry" (Christian Convery) bunk off school to visit a waterfall and pretty soon her mother and the feisty park ranger "Liz" (Margo Martindale) are all tryin...
After the initial hit of Cocaine Bear, the film left me scratching for something a little stronger.
I think the main drawback of this film is that it is trying to do too much. There are seven to eight characters introduced throughout the course of the film, with each given significant time to develop their story and motivations. This takes a lot of time away from the main attraction, the cocaine bear. There is a period of almost 45 minutes where we are focused on these "secondary" characters, without any action or appearance of the cocaine bear. This section was pretty slow paced and started to lose me, but once the bear is re-introduced, the film gets significantly better. The paramedic scene was superb.
The comedy was pretty lacklus...
Cocaine Bear delivers ridiculous creature violence on some goofy, short-lived characters, but its lack of consistent tone and identity kept it from being everything I had hoped.
Lets start with this: I am a massive fan of lane creature movies - Ghost Shark, Sharknado, Lavalantula, The Sand - some of my favorites. So I expected to love Cocaine Bear. Sadly, I was a little underwhelmed. It wasnt bad for what it was, but it didnt dazzle me as I had hoped. Two things held it back for me:
The tone inconsistently switched from a Zombieland-style ridiculous violence to a goofy crime movie to an odd family drama. Cocaine Bear had a minor identity crisis from start to finish.
The movie tried to give each character a little backstor...
If you are viewing this film with some of the Oscar flicks in mind then you might see it as terrible. But if you are watching it for some good ole entertainment's sake, then this one is surely not a miss. A definite viewing which will make you smile and horrified at the same time. I loved it as a one time watch. Not so much the 2nd time though. If you are one of those who like to go critical on not-so-logical jokes, then give this a miss. But if you find life good to have a hearty laugh, then this one's for you.
Theres a bear high on mass quantities of illegal drugs that is going on a murderous rampage in a Tennessee state park in Cocaine Bear, an absolutely awful action / horror movie from director Elizabeth Banks. I understand with a premise like that, its supposed to be stupid. The problem is that the movie isnt just dumb, its actually bad, with poor direction, acting, CGI, writing, and storytelling.
Loosely based on true events (yes, really), the film is inspired by the 1985 story of a drug runners plane crash. In order to save a large quantity of cocaine, the man threw out several duffel bags full of the stuff over Tennessee and then jumped to his death when his parachute didnt open. A black bear got into the drugs, consumed most of it and,...
Not funny enough as a comedy and too silly to take serious
In 1985, several bags of cocaine fall from a drug smuggling plane in the mountainous area of northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee. Near Blood Mountain, a mother black bear eats a lot of the cocaine and goes on a bloody spree as it menaces hikers, rangers, thugs, EMTs and cops.
Cocaine Bear (2023) is a campy creature feature inspired by the true story directed by, of all people, Elizabeth Banks. It was Ray Liottas second to last movie before his death on May 26, 2022. Keri Russell is on hand as the concerned mother of a tween hiker. In real-life the black bear weighed 175 lbs, but this was changed to almost 400 lbs for the movie.
The production unbelievably cost $35...
I got excited for this one, I mean it's 2023 and Cocaine Bear had the promise of NOT being political. It had the promise of NOT having meh message. It had the promise of NOT being serious.
I mean, the bear was obviously the star. People were going to see it because they wanted to see a giant bear high on coke killing people in a mindless and humorous way...
... but.... something happened with the direction. The humor was clearly there on paper. That was evident enough, but the delivery was... meh. The jokes didn't land because they ran too long, the timing was off, everything was there for it to be funny and fun... it just feels like it was made by a director that can't tell a joke.
And it falls on the director, because the w...
To say that Cocaine Bear isnt the usual style of movie I like to watch is an understatement. My wife thought it had been involved in Academy Award talk of some kind and suggested we give it a try. Not sure where the Oscar talk came from but we stuck with it, barely. The violence is that excessive sort that horror fans demand, I guess. It was easy to get past it, once you internalize that it is all special effects and make believe, of course. There was just enough humor to keep us watching, though I am sure if they come out with a sequel, we wont get drawn in a second time.
This movie wasn't great. Had a good sequence with the ambulance, but other than that it was pretty overhyped and was just trying to cash in on a provocative name. The ad campaign for this movie was successful so congrats to them on that.
Some good death sequences aside, 'Cocaine Bear' largely bores.
I do like how many of the characters go out, in ways that are quite creative in fairness. The rest of the 95 minutes though? Underwhelming. There are a few minorly amusing moments scattered in there, though for the majority it kinda just meanders through its run time; whilst watching, I could feel myself losing interest fairly regularly throughout.
The cast didn't do anything for me, either. Keri Russell and Brooklynn Prince are alright, though they and the rest don't provide anything worth remembering. They, naturally, aren't assisted well by the rest of the movie, the comedy is quite weak and the characters aren't made all that intriguing.
It just has enough about it ...
