Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
When filmmakers find and jump rope with that razor-thin line that makes a movie steeped in violence and humor actually funny and intriguing—like the original Scream or Cabin in the Woods—audiences sometimes get an unexpected gem. When it comes to Cocaine Bear, however, from director Elizabeth Banks (whom you might know as a performer from Wet Hot American Summer, 30 Rock or Pitch Perfect), we instead get a barely-there idea extrapolated into a subpar pseudo drug thriller/comedy with some pretty big actors who seem kind of bored and maybe just did the film because it sounded cool to hang out and laugh at the idea of a stoned bear.
At its best, Cocaine Bear pays homage to ’80s slasher movies with stylized death scenes bordering on the absurd; but, like, with a bear. At its worst, it’s ridiculous, but not fun ridiculous so much as a painfully drawn out retelling of the same joke over and over.
In real life, it’s true that a bear in the Georgia woods happened upon a stash of cocaine dumped from a crashing plane by some cop turned drug runner. But whereas the real bear pretty much overdosed and died (and, for some reason, now exists in taxidermy form in a Kentucky mall), Banks’ new film asks us to consider the idea that the only thing this bear loves more than a big-ass pile of blow is killing.
Oh, sure, it’s mildly fun watching the bear go nuts in its pursuit of more coke, and Margo Martindale provides a few yuks as an inept park ranger. But throw in subdued performances from Ray Liotta (in his final role before his death, yikes) as a drug boss with ties to a Colombian cartel, O’Shea Jackson Jr. as his henchman, Alden Ehrenreich as his reluctant son and Keri Russell as a mom trying to find her kid in the woods, and it just seems like a whole lot of filler that gets in the way of the bear chomping faces. Not even a very funny turn from Isiah Whitlock Jr. (BlacKkKlansman) can save this thing from its own abysmal pacing and pedestrian setup. Wait, is it possible they made this thing for tax purposes?
Anyway, Cocaine Bear already made more money than Ant-Man did this week, which is telling, and certainly some will have fun with its over-the-top tone. Still, those with a gore aversion need not apply here, and those who’ve cut their teeth on better examples of funny violent movies could probably rattle off a list of more enjoyable films (2010′s Piranha 3D, for example). If you’re killing time, Cocaine Bear does the trick, but one does wonder how Banks made such a strange premise into one of the more tedious films of the year so far.
4
+Martindale and Whitlock Jr.
-Somehow makes a bear-led slasher boring
Cocaine Bear
Directed by Banks
With Liotta, Jackson Jr., Whitlock Jr., Ehrenreich, Russell and Martindale
Regal, Violet Crown, R, 95 min.
