Cocaine Bear review: A B-movie about a drug-crazed bear

As these characters wander around the park, they are almost funny enough to keep us interested, but their scenes still seem weirdly sluggish and redundant, because they don’t have much to do with the one character we want to know more about: the bear. Given the premise, the film could have made some provocative points about the environment, or cruelty to animals, or America’s war on drugs. Alternatively, it could have made no points whatsoever, and just been a helter-skelter, blood-and-guts exploitation movie in which a bunch of manic misfits are chomped to pieces. But what we actually get is strangely timid for a film called Cocaine Bear. Ironically, it doesn’t have much bite. Rather than focusing on being outrageous and entertaining, Banks and Warden focus on sappy musings about the importance of being a caring parent and a loyal friend. But if you pay to see a B-movie about a furry giant with a taste for class-A narcotics, why would you want to hear those?

It might be best to watch Cocaine Bear at home, where you can skip past the rambling sections and go straight to the laughs and screams. In the cinema, most viewers will wish that it was wittier, faster, and more willing to fulfil the gonzo potential of its in-your-face title. It’s definitely better than Banks’s last film, Charlie’s Angels, but you can’t help feeling that she has done the bear minimum.

★★☆☆☆

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