Cocaine Bear
(R) ★★★★ A wild beast overindulges in Colombian snow.
If you’ve seen the trailer, “you’ve already gotten the joke,” said Michael O’Sullivan in The Washington Post. Cocaine Bear riffs on the bizarre true story of a black bear in Georgia that in 1985 stumbled upon and imbibed 35 pounds of the stimulant that had been dropped from a smuggler’s plane. Elizabeth Banks’ black comedy uses an entirely computer-generated creature to depict the mayhem the jacked omnivore might have created. But while the creature’s powdered-snout rampaging proves “funny, demented, and hyperviolent,” the movie “goes into snoring hibernation” whenever it focuses on its human characters. Banks “has a clean way with messy action,” said Justin Chang in the Los Angeles Times. The movie’s best scene is a high-speed ambulance chase, set to a Depeche Mode song, that delivers “jaw-dropping” gore. Banks also keeps viewers guessing as to which characters live and which die, “though you can bet the latter will include the idiot backing away toward a conveniently positioned grab-and-go window.” Unfortunately, the bloody caper turns “unrewardingly soft” in its final act. None of the characters is interesting to begin with, said Kyle Smith in The Wall Street Journal. Even with a cast that includes Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, and the late Ray Liotta, just about everyone here seems to be doing nothing but “wandering around waiting to take their turns becoming lunch.” Cocaine Bear tips its hat at the gonzo midnight-movie genre of the ’70s, but “anyone who tries to watch it after 10 p.m. is likely to fall asleep.” (In theaters only)