Everything is excessive in Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear), directed by Elizabeth Banks. From the main black bear, turned into an unstoppable monster, to the bloodbath it causes, in addition to a good part of the situations that occur. Almost all of them are the result of unthinkable accidents, plans that fail at unexpected moments or situations out of control.
Based on the true story of a wild animal that consumed entire packs of cocaine, Jimmy Warden’s screenplay comes to fiction as a sinister mockery, with elements of a horror movie that revels in her most graphic scenes. The director combines both tones and, in several of her most important sequences, the killing tries to be humorous. The purpose of the argument is awkward laughter and repulsiveness as a form of satire.
But Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear) it succeeds only partially. In fact, during her first half hour, she uses her narrative resources to make it clear that what she shows once happened. That the attractiveness of being based on real circumstances is an element to take into account.
Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear)
Vicious Bear, directed by Elizabeth Banks, is a bloody comedy in which the humor is based on grotesque and increasingly repulsive deaths. But the combination works halfway. Much of the film hinges on a precarious balance between absurd situations, exaggerated circumstances, and explicit gore. The script tries to encompass everything at once, but fails. On the contrary, the film ends up being the sum of its mistakes and a lack of depth that transforms the surprising premise into a series of tedious sequences.
An unthinkable situation in the middle of a ridiculous crime
Andrew C Thornton II (Matthew Rhys) is a drug dealer trying to airlift various containers of drugs. He does it in the middle of a series of nonsense that leads, of course, to a tragedy that Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear) He doesn’t hide from the start.
When the makeshift flight is about to crash, Andrew jump with a parachute. But first, he makes sure to throw a good part of the drug in a wooded area and carry what he can hold in his arms. It will be precisely this detail —the last thing that really happened and that was used for the plot— that will trigger the horrors that will follow.
The weight of the packages is excessive and the character ends up dying when he crashes to the ground. The containers are scattered around the Georgia forests. So a black bear finds one, opens it up, and eats as many packages as he can. From that moment on, Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear) he abandons his careful reconstruction to mock chance and especially violent deaths.
The wooded landscape, deadly scene of vicious bear
One of the few virtues of Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear) it is that it does not limit itself to insinuating what will happen. Elizabeth Banks decides that the wild beast-turned-killing-machine adventure will be as vulgar and awkward as her premise advertises. Which works during the first stretch, when the bear develops a withering addiction to the drug.
The fully digitally recreated animal undergoes a rapid transformation into a fearsome creature. The script makes it clear that he got a taste of an unknown kind of freedom. It is the closest thing to a human debauchery that the film exaggerates to the absurd. Finally, the thirst for blood and the voracity for the drug transform the bear into a brutal monster.
Something that, of course, the characters do not suspect. Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear) explores the possibility that the nature of the bear —or the lack of knowledge about it— is the central axis of the story. So much so that a good part of its victims do not fully understand what is really happening, until they are violently disemboweled.
The filmmaker uses the explicit images as a kind of twisted joke, turning much of the plot into wicked satire. But she can’t focus on a single point. Does she scoff at the mere possibility of a coke bear? From the naïveté of the long list of her victims, ranging from hikers to children lost in the woods?
A bad joke that is not funny
the script of Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear) it doesn’t have enough depth to go beyond its most impactful sequences. Between beheadings, open skin and dismembered limbs, he loses strength and, above all, interest.
Even more so when it only returns to have a certain coherence by focusing on the parallel story of the mob boss, played by Ray Liotta, in search of the drug shipment. Then, the film becomes a very strange version of a game of mistakes, of poorly drawn plans and fatal errors. All focused on taking each character to a fortuitous and brutal encounter with the bear that roams the woods in search of a new dose of cocaine.
Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear)a lot of blood and little interest
Elizabeth Banks tries to mix a comedy with the codes of the horror genre and build a chaotic premise that connects both. But Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear) it fails to achieve its ambitions and ends up being just an endless chase, loaded with grotesque sequences and a direct homage to gore.
With flat characters—little more than victims for the ravenous monster to enjoy—the plot falters as soon as it turns away from the blood-seeking creature. The film only works in its depiction of unbridled animal violence. In its many variations of heinous murders recreated in peculiar detail.
However, the inadvertent humor between torn off arms, screams of pain, and blood-curdling growls isn’t smart enough. On the contrary, Vicious Bear (Intoxicated Bear) It ends up being a great collection of half sketched ideas. Is it about narrating what could have been in the unanswered spaces of the real event? A minimalist recreation of a circumstance based on terrifying coincidences?
The film does not answer its own questions, although it insists on them over and over again. Ultimately, it ends up being an unfunny joke based on his ability to create revulsion. When he doesn’t make it, he ends up falling into a boring succession of almost identical scenes. Perhaps the most disappointing point in a story that is tedious by insisting on surprising.