Cocaine Bear - Turbine 4K UHD Mediabook (Cover A)

If there’s one thing that I enjoy about a really good, fun, genre picture, it’s when it knows its place. It's not trying too hard to be more than it is, it's not trying to say something its plot and story can't support. It just is what it is. Cocaine Bear is just that sort of flick. It takes a simple premise, very loosely based on a real incident in the 1980s, and runs wild with it. A bear gets high on a cocaine stash that’s fallen from the sky, becomes addicted, and will run down and rip apart any human it thinks can give it a snort of that rich, delicious Colombian nose candy. 

Conceptually, that’s a winner. But a great film can’t be born of concept alone; it has to execute on its premise. Normally, a flick about a bear on a bump rampage would be handled by some young journeyman director with a cast of no-names aiming to secure their SAG cards and maybe get a leg-up in their careers. It might be a box office hit, or it might just become more streaming fodder. That's usually how those films turn out. Cocaine Bear goes in the opposite direction and secures real talent behind and in front of the camera.

Elizabeth Banks moves on from Charlie's Angels and a squad of Pitch Perfect singers for a different type of film altogether. Less of a horror film and more of an over-the-top creature feature comedy, the tone is singularly focused on delivering plenty of gore-fueled laughs. It just so happens that an impressively eclectic cast bears the brunt of this bear’s dusty, bloody brouhaha. Everyone from Keri Russell to Ray Liotta to Margo Martindale to Alden Ehrenreich to O’Shea Jackson Jr. gives this flick the 110% effort. They don’t overplay their roles for gags; instead, they play things as sober and straight as possible given the confines of this particularly zany plot.

We’ve got a ridiculous premise, a solid director, and a great cast. Now it comes down to the gore effects and the titular rampaging powder tooting ursus. The gore effects are top-notch, a blend of some CGI work and practical severed limbs; the outcome of any encounter with our star creature always delivers a great payoff. Where things miss slightly is the overly CG nature of our big, burly rail-riding bear. Overall, they’re pretty good, but this is a case where a stronger practical effects base with CG enhancements would have gone better. Obviously, you can’t give a real bear a fresh kilo of high-grade, uncut Grade A prime cocaine. Well, you could, but that’d be unethical to the animal, and no Hollywood producer would sacrifice that much of their stash just to make a movie more realistic. However, if we had a better blend of the real and the fake, I think some of the imagery impact of a completely blasted bloody bear would have hit better. But that’s getting a bit too granular (no pun intended this time) with a film like Cocaine Bear.

At the end of the day, Cocaine Bear is just damn fun. I missed it in theaters, so like many other fans out there, I caught the film at home, and it was a gas. It was a high-energy, gore-fueled, intensely entertaining ride. I wish I’d caught this one on the big screen with a big audience because it’s that kind of feature. It's great, big, entertainment for a large group. It doesn’t take itself so seriously that it’s trying to be the next animal attack epic in league with Jaws. Just from the title alone, it knows what kind of film it is, and thanks to Banks and her great cast, it delivers on the promise of a rampaging bear high as hell on bags of Big C. Blow. Line. Powdered Nose Punch. Flake. Nasal Express. Pearl. Snow. Fine Alpine. Wall Street Dandruff. Aspen Extreme. You get the idea. Now go watch a bear get high and rip some people apart, you've worked hard and earned it. 

For another take on the film, here’s what Bryan Kluger had to say for the Blu-ray Review
Cocaine Bear Blu-ray Review

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Thanks to our German friends over at Turbine, we have a new two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray Mediabook release of Cocaine Bear to sniff up for our collections. With two cover options available, we have the 4K pressed on a BD66 disc with a BD50 serving the 1080p. Each disc rests on opposite ends of the mediabook with a 28-page booklet sammached in between. The essay inside is in German, but as I’ve mentioned in past Turbine Mediabook releases, using Google Translate isn’t all that cumbersome and lets non-German speakers enjoy that content. Each disc loads to a language menu option, German or English, before moving along to an animated main menu.

Universal went through an odd period a couple of years back where they’d release a Blu-ray of a film but then hold the 4K disc for about six months to a year or let a third-party label release it. That was the case here in the States with Cocaine Bear. I bought the Blu-ray in April of 2023, and by the time September 2023 rolled around with the 4K disc, I just didn’t feel the need to upgrade. Long story short, I didn’t buy that disc. So for this Turbine release, I only have my original Blu-ray to compare it to, and I can certainly appreciate the upgrade. Perhaps not a night-and-day difference maker, but with a little extra resolution clarity and the benefit of Dolby Vision HDR, the incremental enhancements start to stack up. Sure, it could be argued that this film doesn’t exactly need to be in 4K to be enjoyed - but it doesn’t hurt either! Improvements in facial features, the 1980s clothing and textures, and the bloody, practical gore effects are appreciable. The Dolby Vision HDR pass is the bigger winner here, giving the colors a little more vibrancy and heft, letting some of those darker forest shadows stand out with a little more image dimension. Overall, a nice improvement on an already good-looking feature. 

As I understand it, our domestic 4K disc came with Atmos too, but again, I only had the Blu-ray, so I lived for this long with that strong DTS-HD MA 7.1 track. And I lived well with that track, it did good work. But, I have to say, Atmos is a great addition. I was most impressed with this disc’s use of space. Overheads aren’t always on fire, but with rustling trees and some fun thumping overhead when the bear is on the roof of the ranger station, those channels get some clever use. This is especially important any time that the bear towers over one of our hapless castmembers. LFE also felt a bit stronger, letting those guttural growls and roars add some extra heft while big chase sequences like the ambulance charge have more power in the subs. Plenty of activity along the sides and rears with strong music cues and healthy dialogue exchanges, offering up a rich, enjoyable soundscape.

Pretty much everything that we got for extras here in the States returns for this German upgrade. I didn’t spot anything missing or distinctly new - at least on disc. The included booklet counts as a bonus feature upgrade. While they may not be lengthy, the extras do give a little insight into the production, and the commentary is worth a listen. I’d have loved to hear a cast commentary - considering how many great actors meet a violent, bloody end, that’d been funny to hear. 

• Audio Commentary featuring Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman
• From the Cutting Room Floor:
• Deleted & Extended Scenes (HD 4:33)
• Alternate Ending (HD 00:48)
• Gag Reel (HD 1:55)
• Featurettes:
• All Roads Lead to Cokey (HD 9:14)
• Unbearable Bloodbath (HD 8:17)
• Doing Lines (HD 4:01)
• US Trailer
• German Trailer
• German TV Spots
• Booklet

It’s doubtful that Cocaine Bear will rise the ranks as one of the best man-versus-nature creature features ever made; that’s a pretty stacked list of great films. However, as a wild and crazy movie looking to deliver a fun flick about inebriated-bear-induced bodily dismemberment, it deserves some attention. Even if it lives on in the midnight movie rotation, this film is worth catching with a like-minded audience. All the stuff that poor Margo Martindale’s park ranger character endures is worth the price of admission alone! Thanks to those wily folks over at Turbine, we can take another snort of Cocaine Bear, this time in glorious 2160p Dolby Vision with Dolby Atmos audio. The A/V is an overall solid upgrade from the Blu-ray, complete with the full slate of extras and a new booklet of essays. Now all you have to consider is which cover you’d like on your shelf! 

Click to order from Turbine