Cocaine Bear
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Cocaine Bear
Sophienoire — 2 years ago(July 26, 2023 04:19 PM)
Cocaine Bear
(Elizabeth Banks, 2023) 6/10 (★★★)
Animal horror thriller comedy with: Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Margo Martindale (
The Americans
reunion!!), Ray Liotta (RIP), Brooklynn Prince (foul-mouthed brat in
The Florida Project
), Kristofer Hivju (Tormund!!!
), Hannah Hoekstra, Alden Ehrenreich (some movie dude)
Not particularly good, but it has its moments. I have no problem with the concept of meme movies, but the actual scripts that are written around the ideas are generally too flimsy to make a good film. Cocaine Bear, about a bear on cocaine, definitely sounds fun, and it is rampaging, as long as Cocaine Bear is on screen. The film gets surprisingly gory and R-rated, and for that I'm grateful.
The story that surrounds the Cocaine Bear is pretty half-assed, though. There are two major plotlines which will awkwardly intersect at the climax. First, a nurse (Keri Russell) is searching for her lost daughter (The Florida Project's Brooklyn Prince) and her buddy (Christian Convery, who, among the human characters, kind of steals the show) in the Georgian state park wherein the cocaine descended upon the bear. Secondly, O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Alden Ehrenreich, who work for drug kingpin Ray Liotta, are tasked with retrieving the cocaine. Other characters include character actress Margo Martindale as the park ranger, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as a wildlife expert, Isaiah Whitlock Jr. as a police detective, Kristofer Hivju as a Scandinavian hiker, and Matthew Rhys as the drug plane pilot.
Banks has assembled an impressive cast of likable C- and B-listers, and most of them seem to have fun, but none of them are all that interesting. Whenever the human characters are talking, I'm asking "where is Cocaine Bear?" So definitely, as a whole, it's undeniably fun here and there when the bear is on. The plot is just very thin and it's funny but not scary, though I don't think it is even trying to be scary. There is some character stuff I like about the movie and the actors are good at what the movie requires them to do and that is what makes the movie a step above being a bad movie.
Like many horror movies the whole "based on a true story" is more like "so loosely based on the true story to the point of who cares?" A bear ingested cocaine is really the extent to which the movie is "based on a true story." In reality the bear didn't kill anyone, it just wandered around and then died of an overdose. It is actually a sad story. Black bears are passive animals and that this movie takes that passive animal and makes it a drug fueled monster actually bothers me a bit. If you look at the movie deeper you could say the real villain of the movie is drugs and drug dealers at a time when cocaine and "Just Say No" were at it's height, but with a movie so ridiculous it is hard to take that message seriously. The movie is basically "wouldn't it be funny if we made a cocaine fueled bear go on a killing spree while trying to get it's next fix?" As it turns out, maybe but not really.
Really looking forward to
LSD Cow
(20??) now.
ab_channel=UniversalPicturesIreland
https://mubi.com/films/cocaine-bear
https://letterboxd.com/film/cocaine-bear
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14209916/reference
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cocaine_bear
the sound of your racing heart
