{"id":6574,"date":"2024-10-23T13:15:55","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6574"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:15:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:15:55","slug":"cocaine-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/23\/cocaine-bear\/","title":{"rendered":"Cocaine Bear"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Cocaine Bear<\/strong> (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (bloody violence and gore, drug content, language throughout)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Elizabeth Banks\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jimmy Warden\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Mark Mothersbaugh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Guleserian\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 24, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Keri Russell, O\u2019Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta, Christian Convery, Brooklynn Prince, Isaiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Aaron Holliday, Matthew Rhys, Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra, Ayoola Smart, Kahyun Kim, Scott Seiss, J.B. Moore, Leo Hanna.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $64.7M (US)\/$90M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Much like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Snakes on a Plane, the title Cocaine Bear<\/strong> tells you all you need to know. The comedic thriller, directed by actress Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect 2), is about a bear that goes on a bloody rampage after ingesting cocaine. That, more or less, is all there is to it. Don\u2019t you love it when a movie makes an honest effort to NOT be complicated?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The catalyst for the events that transpire circa 1985 is the dumping of a shipment of cocaine by a drug smuggler over the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in Georgia. A female black bear eats some of it and goes berserk. Potential victims aren\u2019t in short supply. Drug kingpin Syd White (Liotta in one of his final performances) sends two of his guys, Daveed (Jackson, Straight Outta Compton) and Eddie (Ehrenreich, Solo: A Star Wars Story), to retrieve his product. Bob (Whitlock, The Wire), a cop from Tennessee, is there looking to nail Syd. Single mother Sari (Russell, Antlers) goes looking for her truant preteen daughter (Prince, The Turning) and her best friend (Convery, Playing with Fire) with the help of park ranger Liz (Martindale, Million Dollar Baby) and wildlife specialist Peter (Ferguson, Modern Family). Throw in a trio of punk teens, two paramedics and a couple of hapless hikers and you\u2019ve got your basic human smorgasbord. Oh yeah, there\u2019s also a cute little puppy who thankfully doesn\u2019t fall victim to the titular killer caniform.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s a smattering of drama tossed into the mix as well. Ranger Liz has a crush on Peter. The daughter is upset with her mother for forcing her new boyfriend on her. Eddie (the son of Syd, btw) is still grieving for his recently deceased wife. He\u2019s in such a bad way that he leaves his young son in the care of Syd, not the most qualified babysitter in the world. Of course, all of this is mere filler. The real point of Cocaine Bear<\/strong> is…. well, it\u2019s in the title.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Is Cocaine Bear<\/strong> a perfect movie? Oh, God NO! Is it a good movie? It succeeds in what it sets out to do, so yes. Is it fun? Oh, HELL YEAH! It\u2019s to cinema what Weird Al Yankovic is to music. It\u2019s a tongue-in-cheek homage to the nature gone wild movies of the 70s, Grizzly in particular. However, it deviates from the formula in a noticeable way. The bear is portrayed more sympathetically than one would expect. The opening titles inform us that black bears aren\u2019t aggressive by nature. They\u2019ll only kill if they have to or they\u2019re under the influence. Okay, I only inferred that first part, but let\u2019s assume it\u2019s true for the purposes of the movie. In any event, there\u2019s a little more at stake for the animal. SPOILER ALERT!<\/strong> She\u2019s a protective mama bear.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let\u2019s talk about the bear for a moment. Obviously, it\u2019s NOT a real bear. Not even the late Bart the Bear (of 1989\u2019s The Bear) could do the things this bear does- e.g. the long leap into the back of a speeding ambulance. This creature is a mix of CGI and motion-capture, the latter performed by stunt man Allan Henry. It looks surprisingly good for a silly B-movie. Is it convincing? No, not really, but it looks more real than anything in Disney\u2019s all-CGI Jungle Cruise. Real or not, it\u2019s a perfect fit for a movie populated by cartoonish characters.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Liotta died not long after finishing work on Cocaine Bear<\/strong>. While it\u2019s not exactly the highest note to go out on, it\u2019s far from the lowest. He gives a comic-tinged version of the intense, coked-up characters he was known for playing. You can see he was having fun with the role. The same can be said of the rest of the cast. Prince and Convery play the kinds of kids we used to see in pre-social media age flicks like The Bad News Bears and The Goonies. Forget about setting a good example for younger viewers who probably shouldn\u2019t be watching anyway. Not only do they swear and ditch school, they sample the product (albeit incorrectly) when they find a brick of coke. Jackson, son of rapper-actor Ice Cube, is a regular chip off the old block. I\u2019m so used to seeing Martindale in more serious fare; it\u2019s great to see her slumming it in a cheesy B-movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As you might expect, Cocaine Bear<\/strong> is mad violent. When this bear kills, she makes a real mess. The limbs strewn about the park don\u2019t just come from trees. There are shootings, stabbings and beatings as well as a crazy accident involving the aforementioned ambulance. NONE of it should be taken seriously. At heart, Cocaine Bear<\/strong> is a comedy. Loosely (and I mean loosely<\/em>) based on a true story, it\u2019s so wild and OTT that you just have to laugh. Although it runs low on gas near the end, it manages to maintain enough momentum to keep viewers engaged. I had a blast watching it. It took me back to my cinematically misspent teen years when I lived for silly movies like this. I\u2019ll say this; I enjoyed Cocaine Bear<\/strong> more than most of this year\u2019s Oscar nominees. Don\u2019t even get me started on that.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cocaine Bear (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (bloody violence and gore, drug content, language throughout)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Elizabeth Banks\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jimmy Warden\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Mark Mothersbaugh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Guleserian\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 24, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Keri Russell, O\u2019Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta, Christian Convery, Brooklynn Prince, Isaiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale, Jesse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Cocaine-Bear-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6574"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6853,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574\/revisions\/6853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}