Everything you need to know about Cocaine Bear is exactly what the title suggests – a black bear high on cocaine. If you go into this movie with the mindset of 2023’s frontrunner for Best Picture or even something like a Best Adapted Screenplay, you’ll leave the theater disappointed and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. As obscure as the title is how could someone look at a poster for Cocaine Bear and not be remotely enticed to check it out? What’s even more obscure is knowing that the events surrounding this movie, while a little far fetched, aren’t that far off from reality. Sometime in 1980s, a bunch of cocaine had been dropped out of an airplane that was piloted by Andrew C. Thornton II, a narcotics officer and a wanted drug smuggler. The plane was carrying too much of it so he decided to toss a ton of it out, along with him parachuting out of the plane but died instantly. A lot of the cocaine made its way in the northern region of Georgia where an American black bear ingested more than 70 pounds of cocaine. A few months later, the body of the bear was discovered at the state line between Tennessee and Georgia.
What didn’t occur was the bear going on a murderous rampage killing people after eating the cocaine, but who wants to see a movie about a bear dying from eating cocaine? That sure would be a short movie so Universal and the filmmakers decided to spin the movie down a different path. The one apprehension with Cocaine Bear comes down to its director and that’s Elizabeth Banks. Banks is a terrific and wonderful comedic performer, but her direction efforts with Pitch Perfect 2 and the Charlie’s Angles reboot were very mediocre products. It was hard to grasp on what her style was which odd because she’s known to be an excellent comedic actress. With Cocaine Bear being her third attempt as a director the trepidations were still there.
Elizabeth Banks has finally found the perfect movie to the movie that works to her comedic strength. Cocaine Bear is hilarious, super gory and an incredible satire. Make no mistake about it, this is a movie that has shades of a B-monster movie and an 80 slasher film, but at the crux this movie is an odd and screwball comedy that will you have audiences in stitches for the entire 95 minute runtime. But perhaps the best aspect of this movie (and there’s a ton of them) is that the movie is sure of itself. It’s those types of films that it knows exactly what kind of movie it is and walks around the room with cockiness because it beautifully delivers on what the title is. On the other hand, it balances itself out well by playing around with other sub-genres to give the movie other layers of personality.
We need to have a serious discussion on who the next great slasher is. Obviously there’s Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers. But when it comes to monsters some might think of the shark from Jaws, the Anaconda from Anaconda or even the Crocodile from Lake Placid. The bear in Cocaine Bear is truly a one a kind creature for the monster movie genre. The movie shines when its on screen, the music created around it gives those 80 slasher vibes and it’s what you pay to see and it delivers in spades. It also leans in to how bloody and entertaining the kills are in this thing. The violence, strangely enough, leans into a comedic angle that the movie features. The overall oversight with the script is definitely one of the films strongest aspects. The way Banks and the rest of the screw bended their own mythology with the events was impressive, the jokes landed every single time and while it does go through a lot of different story arcs with a variety of characters, they all were wonderfully braided together.
At the end of the day, Cocaine Bear is exactly what you would expect. It’s completely crazy, super violent and sidesplitting for the entire portion of the film. There’s no telling if the movie will actually be on anyones best of the year list when the year does come to a close, but for the solely based on the entertainment value Cocaine Bear is one of the most entertaining experiences you’ll have at the movie theater this year.
Zane's take at the Cinema's 