1985. A drug courier flies over the Georgia woods and drops several bags of cocaine, some of which are found by a baribal and eaten by the contents. The animal goes berserk, and now all the tourists, rangers and the poor bastards who happen to get in its way are in for a world of hurt.
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I think that many movie lovers have been overtaken more than once by the syndrome of inflated expectations, when the loud name of a cult franchise, a successful director and the best cast of actors at the end result in secondary digested feces. Especially in recent years, when the Hollywood film industry has been degrading at a faster rate than the domestic industry. And what can you expect from a movie whose title and trailer make it clear from the start that it is going to be a ‘B’ or even ‘C’ category spectacle or lower? All the more so when it is directed by a man who has made nothing better than Movie 43. However, let’s give the film a chance, if only because I was amused by all kinds of monster movies when I was a kid.
The first two introductory scenes are nothing interesting – they simply introduce the way a plane with a prohibited cargo fell down in a nature reserve, and a bear cub found a more careful ‘delicacy’ instead of honey. Then the viewer may get a little bored, as we are gradually and unhurriedly introduced to the actors, who for one reason or another ended up in the woods. The children skip class and go to the waterfall, and the mother of one of them goes looking for a naughty child. The bandits are on their way to collect the ‘goods,’ and the old cop is on their heels. No one person can be singled out as the protagonist. And there is a certain sense in this, because the plot is not built around these worthless people, but around Mikhal Potapych, who has discovered a new level of buzz. It is fair to say that all the characters are not perceived as cardboard, whose purpose is to become fodder for the bear. On the contrary, you empathize with them. This includes those who are initially seen as the ‘bad guy’.
The narrative is a bit jagged and uneven. The characters go somewhere, talk a lot and make jokes for 300, when suddenly this peace and quiet is broken by a bear and arranges an all-out disaster. It’s funny, it’s entertaining, but not always. I did not like the staging of some scenes at all. The bear’s chase for the ambulance was badly shot, like a bad parody of Leslie Nielsen movies. Although there are plenty of good bear scenes as well. It’s a shame that almost all of them were covered in the trailer. The ending is, on the one hand, quite action-packed, but, on the other hand, somewhat blurred and even atypical for this kind of movie. I won’t spoil it here – everyone has his own opinion.
I must say that we have a strong cast for such a peculiar movie. It would be an exaggeration to say that the actors played brilliantly and showed all their skills. But on the whole, everyone is in their place. Even the child actors are not annoying, which is not very often. Only the park rangers along with the medics, who belong in ‘Village of Fools’, are disliked. And for old Ray Liotta, to whose memory this film is dedicated, this is not the worst ending to his rich filmography.
It feels like this movie was made on a small budget, for the computer-generated Bear looks a little weak for 2023. And it is very striking, unfortunately. Although the overall impression of the film is not spoiled by the weak graphics, for ‘Cocaine Bear’ perfectly fulfills its main mission – it entertains. If you ask me, it is not a bad movie to watch with beer and chips in a big and friendly company. And you shouldn’t expect anything more from a movie with such a title.
Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (61.0 Mb/s)
Resolution: Upscaled 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles
English SDH, French (Canadian), Spanish (Latin American).
