Cocaine Bear ★★★½ 

LET’S not be too sniffy about Cocaine Bear.

I’ve heard some podcast film critics doing the usual and falling into the lazy trap of reviewing the film they wanted to see rather than the one that was made.

‘It’s not silly enough’, ‘It’s not edgy enough’, ‘It’s not gory enough’, ‘It’s just a meme with a good trailer’ are some of the complaints going around about a film that has already earned more than enough to warrant a sequel.

I also may have liked to see a gorier and edgier version of the story of a drug-crazed bear that terrorises a national park – but that’s not this film.

The creative team responsible for The Lego Movie have more of an offbeat, rather than edgy, humour and decided to target as wide an audience as possible which meant holding back from falling into the horror genre or drug-based humour.

It’s also a good idea not to follow the low-budget Sharknado model because you aren’t going to get a cinema release and make a lot of money, which I think is kind of the idea for most film studios.

So go along with low expectations and you’ll probably enjoy the film as much as I did. It is loosely based on the true story of an American black bear that died after ingesting cocaine that was dumped from a plane in 1985. In this case what would happen if the bear survived and went on a rampage looking for more.

The opening sequence of the film, set on the drug trafficker’s plane, is terrific and sets the tone for the black and absurd humour that will follow throughout.

Occasionally it seems there may be too many human characters, but it makes for more mayhem, death and destruction and the likes of Alden Ehrenreich, Brooklynn Prince, Margo Martindale and the late Ray Liotta all seem to have thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

The ambulance sequence is the highlight and perfectly demonstrates how you can deliver a horror-comedy to a general audience.