An endangered Black Bear is in the forest minding her business when a cocaine blizzard showers her habitat. After consuming a kilo or 10, she goes on a rampage mauling every human in her path to satisfy her fix.
COCAINE BEAR is slow-paced and full of scene fillers. Much of the story beats are unnecessary time-wasters. For a graphic slasher film with no protagonists, we didn’t need the character building of any of these characters, especially Keri Russell’s, O’Shea Jackson Jr’s or Alden Ehrenreich’s. His is an arc that is purposely mawkish and grief-stricken to move the audience to root for one of the antagonists (because he has so much screen time) when the only one to root for in this film is the coked-up, endangered bear.
STYLE/TONE:
There’s a lot of nothingness going on in the story that highlights how weak Jimmy Warden’s screenplay is. Too much walking through the forest to get from point A to B. It wasn’t paced well enough or humorous enough to take the journey with those characters.
Elizabeth Banks’ directing style of allowing the humor to linger long enough as if those long beats were placeholders for a laugh track was awkward and amateurish.
The time/setting weren’t properly conveyed, neither were wardrobe and props. The characters were dressed in 80s garb and the vehicles were 80s clunkers (with seatbelts btw), but they — many of them — had smartphones.
The CGI of the black bear was captured with realism. That’s what the movie has going for it — the well-crafted CGI.
MARKETING:
The viral marketing campaign for the film will pique your interest enough to see it opening weekend. But the trailer features the best sequences of the film and it’s spoiler-heavy. I just don’t see how this film will have legs throughout March and grow a cult following once word gets out that it’s too gimmicky and empty of substance.
That’s the reason the review embargo was lifted on the day the film would be released in most markets.
WHAT WORKS:
Margo Martindale, the kids (Christian Convery & Brooklynn Prince), the Black Bear and well, the coke. The best scenes involve them.
Isiah Whitlock, Jr. has great comedic timing, but not a whole lot to do. He has a “prop” in the form of a lapdog to justify the cruelty of the bear(s) at the hands of humans.
That’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s arc, too. His purpose was to humanize the humans, which was a futile exercise. He does have funny moments during his brief stint and is nearly unrecognizable in hair and makeup.
It was good seeing the late great Ray Liotta as a kingpin again. One final hurrah! But his role was also brief and written so milquetoast and one-dimensionally.
EXTRAS:
Stick around for some funny mid-credit scenes (there are 3).
If there’s a director’s cut and outtakes, I’d be interested in seeing them if only to imagine a better version of this film.
The film is setup for an inevitable sequel. The production budget for this film is estimated at $35M and I’m sure the marketing budget was at least $20M. It has a lot of earning to do to justify a sequel.
SEE OR SKIP?:
See Cocaine Bear in theaters this weekend. There is enough in the film that works to justify paying to see it opening weekend.
