Some movies investigate what it is to be human. Some imagine what today’s trends could create in the decades or centuries to come. And some movies are about a bear that’s high as a kite after taking a bucketload of drugs. Cocaine Bear isn’t a masterpiece by any means, and it doesn’t have anything to say about the human condition. It’s a film about a bear, on cocaine, and the quite severe dangers of being near said bear. It’s the perfect weekend watch on Prime Video if you love a silly horror comedy.
Is Cocaine Bear any good?
The omens weren’t great: the film went viral long before it was released, with distinct echoes of the distinctly rubbish Snakes on a Plane. But this time the fear that the film would be a decent trailer stretched to two hours were unfounded. Cocaine Bear is fun.
The Guardian said that “it may not be Grizzly Man meets Scarface, but it leaves Snakes on a Plane standing on the runway”. It’s a “campy horror comedy in which an apex predator and a ragtag group of humans are exposed to several million dollars’ worth of class-A narcotics simultaneously… sporadically goofy fun, a scrappy carnival of ripped limbs, severed heads and spilled intestines, all softened by an only partly parodic family-centred Spielbergian sensibility.”
It’s not exactly great art. But it’s very entertaining. News.com.au said: “This is a movie that makes no apologies for trying to make you howl in laughter and disgust – at the same time.” And the Austin Chronicle said: “Cocaine Bear is a success…by putting the emphasis on a handful of extremely gnarly kills and sprinkling in just enough weirdness to keep the entire train moving.”
The Irish Times found some unexpected depth in the film, which of course is really just about a bear on cocaine. “This is a rare film that extracts humor from younger teenagers shovelling down cocaine on penknives, but elsewhere the tone is closer to something produced by Steven Spielberg.” But for Entertainment Weekly, “In every dumb and delightful way, it’s just about a bear, standing in front of the world, asking for more cocaine till she explodes.”
It perhaps is not a strong contender for the list of the best Prime Video movies when viewed as holistic art… but that’s not really the point of a movie called Cocaine Bear, is it?