Review of Cocaine Bear (2023) by Rebecca31 — 26 Feb 2023

I think my expectations for Cocaine Bear might have been a little too high. And yes, it’s a movie called Cocaine Bear, it has cocaine and it has a bear but if you expect anything more than that then yes you will be disappointed.

When a drug drop doesn’t go according to plan, leaving bags of cocaine scattered throughout a Georgia forest, everyone is in danger when a huge black bear ingests it and goes on a murderous rampage. Between the random hikers just out enjoying nature, and a group of cops and criminals desperately searching for the millions of dollars worth of drugs, there’s enough of them trekking through the forest ready to be torn to pieces by the crazed bear.

Based on the true events (and that term is used very loosely in this context) around a drug smuggling operation that went a bit off the rails when a bear ingested cocaine. Whereas the real story behind this is nowhere near interesting enough to get a 90 minute horror/comedy movie from, Elizabeth Banks decided to make a full on mental movie that requires you to suspend belief and just expect to be entertained. This is not the real story, it’s complete fiction. But unfortunately it’s not as entertaining as it should have been either. The initial hype that Cocaine Bear generated once the trailer was released is the high point for this movie but if it’s as successful at the box office as it appears to be then don’t be surprised if there’s a whole bunch of apex predator high on drugs movies down the line.

At the same time a bear is off it’s head on drugs there’s Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) and Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) trying to find the drugs before the police. A detective trying to take down the criminal organisation run by Syd (Ray Liotta). And if that wasn’t enough, there’s also the inconvenient timing of two kids getting lost in the forest while a mother desperately searches for her daughter, plus some hikers. Once all the setup is out of the way, the bear has plenty of people to maul to death. And yes the characters are annoying enough for you to be rooting for the bear in this case. The movie certainly delivers on the gore and there’s an 18 rating for a reason. There’s guts and flying limbs everywhere. But it tried far too hard to shove subplots into it with characters that honestly it’s hard for the audience to care about. We’re just here to see a bear eat some people with a few laughs thrown into it.

Cocaine Bear is clearly drawing inspiration from other “insert animal” on the rampage type movies and sure it’s not quite Deep Blue Sea levels of bad but it sure ain’t Jaws or even The Edge either. It’s also not as funny as you’d expect, it got a few chuckles at the screening I attended but definitely not the rip-roaring laugh out loud movie the trailer painted it out to be. The story isn’t the problem, it promises a coked up bear ripping people to pieces and it delivers exactly that but the script is diabolically bad. It’s a cringe inducing, toe-curling mess. Whenever the characters are interacting with each other you end up praying for the CGI bear to reappear and give them a quick death.

If there’s one good thing about Cocaine Bear it’s gotten people into the cinemas this weekend. And at a time where cinemas are struggling, a movie like this is needed every now and again. It’s a popcorn flick that will appeal to some people. It didn’t work for me but sure I still went to see it didn’t I. Recommended for those who enjoy movies like Snakes on a Plane or Piranha 3D.