Cocaine Bear Review
Theatrical movie review
In 1985, Andrew C. Thornton II dropped a duffle bag of cocaine out of his airplane over Georgia to help lighten the load. He then jumped, but when his parachute failed to open, he died. When the authorities went searching for his body and the drugs, they found a black bear dead in the forest next to 40 open containers of cocaine. The bear, nicknamed “Pablo Escobear” is on display in Lexington, KY. But this week, Elizabeth Banks has brought her back to life in the feature film, “Cocaine Bear.”
When Dee Dee (Brooklyn Prince) and Henry (Christian Covery) skip school to paint a waterfall at their local state park, little did they know that they would be encountering a drug-fueled monster. Neither did drug dealers Daveed (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.) or Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) or their boss Syd (Ray Liotta). And while park ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) and her colleague Peter (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) know a thing or two about apex predators, they are not ready for one that has become a cocaine addict. But honestly, who could ever be prepared for Cocaine Bear?
When you go into a movie called “Cocaine Bear,” you probably have certain expectations. I am here to tell you, those expectations will absolutely be met. This is a movie about a bear high on cocaine. It is a solid 95 minutes of absolute carnage. Elizabeth Banks understood the assignment.
The performances in this were all fine. Aside from esteemed character actress Margo Martindale and the late Ray Liotta, I don’t know that any really stood out to me, but everyone looked like they had a blast working on this movie. No one takes themselves too seriously, they just had a good time conveying the absolute absurdity of being hunted by a bear snorting coke.
One thing that might get missed in this is the actual bear. Obviously this had to be a CGI animal, and one might expect it to be a fairly low quality looking bear, given the smaller budget for this movie, but she looks absolutely fantastic. There are a few times when the fake is a bit more obvious, but overall, the work on the bear is top notch. And all but one scene is filmed in daylight, so there is less ability to hide poor looking animation.
There are a few places where the script drags, especially in the first act, and some of the scenes felt a little disjointed, but overall, this movie clipped along at a steady pace. The theater I saw it in was moderately full and everyone seemed to have a good time.
If you’ve read my reviews for a while, you know that I love movies that are packed with meaning. I want layers and depth. I want an examination of the society that we live in and how we can move through this world in a better, kinder way. This movie has none of that. It is as surface level as it could be. It’s a bear on cocaine. That’s it. And it is an absolute riot.
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on February 26, 2023.