The comedy slasher 'Cocaine Bear' is now in online release. A film that desperately wants to make the audience laugh. But it does a poor job.

In the mid-80s, a rather wild incident occurred in the United States, one that only conspiracy theorists could believe. A light aircraft, packed to the brim with cocaine, crashed over a forest reserve in Georgia. Before the plane crashed, the pilot managed to throw part of the cargo over the forest, where a wild bear found and ate it.

In the end, the poor bear died without harming anyone, but the screenwriter of 'Cocaine Bear,' Jimmy Warden (who wrote the decent comedy 'The Babysitter: Killer Queen'), latched onto this story. He turned the bear into a female, allowed her not only to survive the massive dose of cocaine but also to go insane, tearing apart everything in sight. In the ill-fated forest at that moment, several people find themselves: the actual owner of the cargo (the final role of Ray Liotta) with his accomplices, a desperate mother (Keri Russell) searching for her truant daughter and her friend, a trio of local hooligans, a detective on the trail of the criminals (Isaiah Whitlock Jr.), and park rangers.

'Cocaine Bear,' whose inventive premise (Tony Montana in a bear's skin – mind-boggling) ran far ahead of its official premiere thanks to viral snippets on social media, ultimately turned out to be a rather superficial piece of work.

According to the creators' intent, the very concept, with its true backstory, was supposed to immediately knock the ground out from under the viewer's feet and elicit a nervous chuckle, and the rest was just a matter of execution. Literally. All that remained was to render the she-bear well (which worked, but sometimes 50/50), and litter everything with severed limbs (truly frightening). As for the rest, they either forgot to take care of it in the heat of excitement, or simply gave up on it after the fact.

Despite a good on-screen pace, beating in time with the she-bear's stomp as she chases her next victim, 'Cocaine Bear' is completely devoid of wit. The kind of wit that would place Elizabeth Banks' film alongside 'Tucker and Dale vs. Evil' or, say, 'Dead Snow'. Because humor is not just constant running around, awkward chatter (everything here clumsily invokes Tarantino), and scenes in the spirit of 70s exploitation cinema. None of this even elicits a sarcastic smile, and the film simply cannot offer anything more. Except for the scene where the powder affects the she-bear like cheese affects the mouse Rockfor from 'Chip 'n Dale.' But that quickly gets old.

'Cocaine Bear' tries, without any conventions, to fit into one vessel a carefree splatter film, a family drama (unexpectedly), statements about the dangers of drugs, and the relationship (or rather, the lack thereof) between man and nature. With the right tools and a steady hand from the film's creators, the union could have been, at the very least, interesting. But, alas, neither is observed in Elizabeth Banks and her team.

At certain moments, the film constantly asks the question: 'What's wrong with this bear?' It can be addressed with the same confidence to the film's authors, because all the texture is in plain sight, all the components of good entertainment cinema are right in the palm of your hand, the grainy 80s with bright costumes and polished cars are present. With such data, one would like to see a film with a bit more bite. But, as they say, our expectations are our problems.

In the end, 'Cocaine Bear' turned out to be inventive only in its title. In all other respects, it is a non-essential, overloaded, and somewhat boring movie. But there is hope that next time something similar comes out (and filmmakers already have plans for sharks on substances), expectations will be met.