On some level, you have to give it to movies like cocaine bearUniversal’s new black comedy director elizabeth banks about a drugged bruin who wanders the woods, maiming unsuspecting humans and making lines out of the dismembered limbs of his victims. Just spelling out and then relentlessly exceeding his ridiculous premise for an hour and a half, cocaine bear it immediately stands apart (in a good way) from many of the more comedic “cerebral” horrors and thrillers the film draws on. But as fun as the movie is, the same weirdness that makes it work so well at first quickly becomes more than a little too much as it progresses. cocaine bear you keep trying to up the ante when what you really need is to slow down and relax.
Somewhat based on the true story of the 175-pound black bear made famous in 1985 by an overdose of cocaine missed by drug dealers in Tennessee, cocaine bear Imagine a reality where landing that much punch would lead a bear to go on a murderous rampage instead of killing it. Initially, no one has any idea how much cocaine cocaine dealer Andrew C. Thornton (Matthew Rhys) drops from his plane over the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in a clever but ill-conceived attempt to hide from the authorities during a big run. However, when huge chunks of white powder begin to appear all over the park, it isn’t long before Thornton’s dump becomes the subject of a local news frenzy that puts cocaine on most everyone’s minds. people even more than it already is.
For cops like Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and Reba (Ayoola Smart), coke is a sign that notorious kingpin Syd (Ray Liotta) is making big moves, while people like Syd’s son Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich ) and Eddie’s friend Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) see him as a mess they’ll have to clean up. Between her new boyfriend and keeping an eye on her daughter, quintessential ’80s mom Sari (Keri Russell) is too busy to pay much attention to the nonsense going on in the woods. But when Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince), Sari’s high school student, and her best friend Henry (Christian Convery) decide to leave school one day to hang out in nature, they don’t realize the danger they are in. they are facing. what kind of wild ride awaits them.
Image: Universal
Each one of cocaine bearThe human characters in have their own reasons for wandering the park, and are well aware of what kinds of things they need to be aware of under normal circumstances. But for all their planning and vague knowledge of what to do when they encounter wild animals, none of them have any idea what to do once they start to individually bump into the she-bear whose main focuses throughout the film are romping, finding more coke, and smashing anything that gets in his way.
It’s not really a knock against cocaine bear To say there isn’t much else to the cheesy, tongue-in-cheek film beyond the basic script elements from screenwriter Jimmy Warden, who quickly sets about bringing in even more characters like park ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) and animal conservationist. Peter (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) in the picture. In the same way that Universal’s m3gan leaned fully into his sillier qualities while joking about dolls killing childrencocaine bear wants you to laugh at its absurdity as you watch a huge, unconvincing CGI bear trip over balls and eat people.
It is obvious, both from cocaine bear‘s framing and one of his more memorable deaths: that the film is trying to harness a very similar kind of brilliant but slightly wacky energy that made Renny Harlin deep blue sea such an instant classic. But by the time the bear carries his second bag full of dust, you can already see that cocaine bear he just doesn’t know how to create a sustained atmosphere of tension and feels like he’s trying to inundate you with disturbing images.
Image: Universal
The irony is that being less violent is not exactly what cocaine bear, a movie about an animal that goes crazy, needs. Rather, it suffers from a curious bloat stemming from the number of different subplots it tries to weave together as more characters like European hikers Elsa (Hannah Hoekstra) and Olaf (Kristofer Hivju) and a trio of knife-wielding teenagers cross paths. with the bear many of cocaine bearCharacters end up dying in funny ways that underscore that you’re not meant to be that invested in any of their individual lives. but there is so much many strongly characterized players running through the forest waiting to be gobbled up that it becomes difficult not to feel like it cocaine bearis too long snl sketch in desperate need of trimming and some rewrites.
cocaine bearIt’s not without its charms, with both Convery and Martindale delivering exceptionally delicious performances that reinforce how a little more substance for other characters could have done wonders to make them more memorable. However, to really enjoy the movie, you’re going to have to be in exactly the right kind of headspace and have a high tolerance for pure, uncut ridiculousness.
