You might think it’s a joke when you first see the trailer. The title alone conjures up images of throwaway gags and parody movies, like “Phineas and Ferb’s” “Horse in A Bookcase.” I expected there to be some twist, some reveal that it was part of a larger project, but no, it really is a movie about a bear high on cocaine.
And it’s actually not that bad.
“Cocaine Bear” grossed $23 million within its first two days of release on Feb. 24, making it an instant box office success. With a budget of $30-35 million, the film nearly broke even on opening weekend. “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania,” (released on Feb. 17), actually saw a significant drop in viewers due to the overwhelming excitement surrounding “Cocaine Bear.”
As I said earlier, I initially thought the movie was a parody. The hilariously on-the-nose title, the radically over-the-top logo and the strange appearance of typically serious stars like Ray Liotta, all made it seem like one large joke. And while the film is a comedy-horror, I believe the production team’s marketing strategies are nothing to laugh at. “Cocaine Bear” should be praised for the level of absurdity it was willing to steep itself in. Even my least favorite part of the trailer, in which they have a character scream multiple times that “a bear did cocaine!” fits neatly into the movie’s intended chaotic style. Overall, the trailer promised exactly what the film delivered, and for that, I loved it.
*The next two paragraphs will discuss my overall opinions on the structure of the movie. This section will contain several spoilers for the film, as well as the ending.
As for the comedic aspect, there were some hits and some misses. The younger characters said some strange lines that sounded like they were written by someone who’d never met a child, the entire scene where the bear falls asleep on Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) was a rambling pad for runtime and Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr) had only one slightly funny joke about his jersey, which, by the third time he said it, felt overdone.
This is not to say that I thought the movie had no redeeming qualities. What makes this film truly memorable is its creative deaths. I am not usually a fan of gore in horror, but Ranger Liz’s (Margo Martindale) bloody face plant into the preserve’s asphalt trail left a permanent imprint on my soul. Similarly, watching Syd (Ray Liotta) get his entrails torn out by baby cocaine bears was the perfect stomach-turning dive off the edge that this movie needed.
Overall, the movie is better than I thought it would be. It’s extremely entertaining, and makes no attempt to soften any of its absurd twists and turns. So whether you’re in it to support Elizabeth Banks, or you just want to watch a bear go absolutely insane for an hour, I would say that “Cocaine Bear” is definitely worth a watch.