Allegedly based on real events, this comedy-action-horror movie is a broad fictionalization of what actually transpired in rural Georgia back in 1985.  Reflecting the tenor of our times the filmmakers have turned an almost meaningless footnote of history into a wild adventure where nasty, immoral characters in search of money turn an innocent animal into a murderous force of nature — with humor.  The absurd comedy of death.  I wonder if Shakespeare would appreciate this.

Elizabeth Banks’ film has bags of cocaine dropped from an airplane over mountainous Georgia consumed by a curious bear, which begins to actively search for more, while tearing apart anyone he comes across.  While a mother (Keri Russell) searches for her missing daughter a number of drug runners, teenage gang members, lazy Park Rangers and other people crisscross the bear’s rampaging path, usually to their doom.

Rampaging bear movies are not new; even George Clooney, Laura Dern and Charlie Sheen have been hunted (in the same movie, the wretched Grizzly II: Revenge).  In this case, Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Isiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale, Ray Liotta and others are chased and mauled by a big CGI bear that sometimes doesn’t look very real at all, especially when it is running down a speeding ambulance for no particular reason.  Viewers may enjoy watching the bear rip through this cast of despicable criminals and stupid characters but I sure didn’t.  I think it is very difficult for filmmakers to balance the discordant tones of having fun with bloody, disgusting, absurd deaths and yet maintaining genuine suspense for characters one cares about.  Here, other than the possible exception of the mother and the neighbor kid she drags around with her, there are no such redeeming characters.  I just don’t see the appeal of watching a terrified driver plow into a tree and fly through a windshield to her demise, seen in closeup.  Real funny.

Movies like this can succeed with dark humor or violent absurdity; I enjoy Lake Placid a great deal, for instance.  But Lake Placid and even lesser romps like Anaconda actually put some effort into persuading viewers to care about the potential victims.  This film does none of that.  We are meant to cheer for the bear when it mauls the arrogant Park Ranger and follows her back to the office to wipe out the NPS staff — because they don’t mean anything.  They are fodder for the killing machine.  And this film is fodder for an apathetic audience lured by the spectacle of a bear with ‘road rage.  Ugh.  ☆ 1/2.  10 November 2024.