Cocaine Bear: Is It UnBEARable?

Before we get started, no, I'm not going to apologize for the pun.  I remember when I first got interested in this movie.  The trailer had been out for a couple of days, I think, and I hadn't watched it yet.  I was at work closing up and had a few minutes before my shift ended, so I decided to watch the trailer.  It was bat-shit insane.  A bear doing cocaine? Terrorizing innocent people?  Ray Liotta was in it? I was sold.  Now, having watched the movie, does it live up to the hype?  That's what I'm here to tell you.

Cocaine Bear is directed by Elizabeth Banks and stars Kerri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Christian Convery, Brooklyn Prince, and Margo Martindale.  When a black bear eats a ton of cocaine, she goes on a rampage, terrorizing numerous people.  This includes a mother (Russell) looking for her daughter (Prince), a park ranger (Martindale), some criminals (Ehrenreich and Jackson Jr.), and many others.  With all of that out of the way let's dive into the review!

I'm just gonna get this off my chest right now and say that I was a bit disappointed in this movie.  With that being said, there were quite a few things I did enjoy.  When the bear is doing its bear shenanigans, that's when this film is at its best.  It becomes bonkers, in the best way possible.  What other movie has an incredibly cracked out animal chasing an ambulance?  During these portions of the movie, I was having a blast.  There were quite a few characters too that stood out.  The first one that comes to mind is Eddie (Ehrenreich) who is the son of Syd (Ray Liotta), a drug lord.  Mild spoilers ahead, but this is Cocaine Bear.  Early on in the movie, it's revealed that Eddie's wife has died, leaving their son with him.  She was the one thing that got him out of the drug business.  Now that she's gone, Syd sees a way for Eddie to get back in.  The only thing is, Eddie is grieving and wants to be there for his son.  Alden Ehrenreich did a really good job here. I liked his portrayal of Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story and wanted to see more of him since then. He was very funny and delivered one of the best lines in the movie, as heard in the trailer, "A BEAR DID COCAINE!"  He's also got a couple of other great lines that I won't spoil.  I hope we get to see him in more movies soon.  Another scene stealer was Henry (Convery), who is a friend of Dee Dee (Prince).  Usually I'm a little iffy on kid actors, but this little guy was hysterical.  He got some of the biggest laughs in the movie.  Henry is a foul mouthed little kid who will do anything to impress Dee Dee.  I really hope Christian Convery continues acting because I think he's got a future in it.  It was also nice seeing Ray Liotta in his last movie role here.  As mentioned earlier, he plays Eddie's dad.  He's also pretty funny, but is very determined to get his cocaine back.  The movie is also dedicated to him.  The bear also looked real too (for the most part).  Obviously, the filmmakers couldn't use a real bear for this movie, so they used CGI.  It looked pretty good.  The animator did a great job getting all of the mannerisms of the creature right. 

While I had fun with this movie, there were quite a number of things that held it back.  This movie clocks in at 1 hour and 36 minutes.  When I heard this, I got pretty excited because I figured we'd get to see the coked creature go on a rampage for most of the film.  While we do get to see this, it's bogged down by way too many characters that just didn't interest me.  I really didn't care for Kerri Russell looking for her daughter and the one thing that saved that for me was Christian Convery.  There's another plot line involving teenagers which did nothing for me.  There's a cop (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who's investigating the criminals.  He's funny, yes, but the movie wastes too much time setting up a backstory for him that ultimately contributes nothing to the film.  I could go on and normally I wouldn't complain about characters being set up and introduced, but most of them I just didn't care about.  This is Cocaine Bear, not some character-study.  By setting up and introducing all of these people, Bear doesn't get to utilize it's crazy premise to its full potential which is an extreme let-down.  There's never any time to breathe.  What also doesn't help is that a lot of the funny scenarios (chasing the ambulance) are shown in the trailers.  Not everything is shown, but enough is.  I mentioned earlier that most of the humor lands, but when it doesn't?  Oof.  Nowhere is this more apparent than with Olaf (Kristofer Hivju), a hiker who appears in the first and third act.  He just wasn't funny.

To wrap everything up, Cocaine Bear was a mixed bag for me. While it wasn't unBEARable, it definitely wasn't PAWesome either (sorry).  When the bear is tearing people apart, the movie shines.  There are also quite a number of funny performances, mainly from Ehrenreich and Convery.  The bear is also wonderfully animated.  What bogs the movie down is too many characters that I don't care about, which causes the film to never really live up to its full potential.  When the humor didn't work, it landed with a thud for me, too.  If I were to rate it, I'd give Cocaine Bear a 6-6.5/10.  Even though I was disappointed, I do recommend seeing it in a theater because the reactions were hysterical!