GRIN AND BEAR IT (COCAINE BEAR)

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If you go down to the woods in Georgia, you're in for a big surprise.

Or at least, that's what Elizabeth Banks would have you believe with her supremely silly, black comedy horror flick 'Cocaine Bear'.

A social media sensation when its trailer dropped last November, it's one of those movies like 'Snakes On A Plane' that trades off its kitschy title and does exactly what it says on the tin.

However unlike David R Ellis' 2006 hit, it mostly delivers.

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Executive produced by 'The Lego Movie' team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and written by Jimmy Warden, Elizabeth Banks approaches her film with her tongue firmly lodged in her cheek.

'Cocaine Bear' is a B Movie and knows it.

Its director, crew and cast are simply content to enjoy the ride.

Very loosely based on a true story, it reimagines a real life incident in 1985 where a Kentucky drug smuggler Andrew C Thornton dumped duffel bags of cocaine out of a Cessna plane in 1985 on his way back from Colombia.

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Thornton was subsequently found dead in the driveway of a home in Knoxville, Tennessee after freefalling to his death after parachute problems.

Three months later, a black bear in the Chattahoochee National Forest in northern Georgia was also found dead having consumed cocaine in one of the duffel bags dropped by Thornton.

But that is where Banks and Warden depart from reality and instead they build a story around the premise of what might have happened had the bear came across humans while high.

Banks casts Matthew Rhys in a cameo as Thornton but then diverts the story to O'Shea Jackson Jr's henchman Daveed in St Louis being summoned by Ray Liotta'a drug dealer Syd to go recover their consignment.

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Syd's son Alden Ehrenrich's Eddie is in the depths of despair having just experienced the death of his wife.

He is so consumed by his grief, he has left his dad to keep an eye on his grandson.

Daveed meets Eddie in a St Louis bar where a trucker overhears them discussing Syd's plan to have them recover the duffel bags dumped by Thornton.

The trucker alerts Isiah Whitlock's old school detective Bob to the plan and he decides to head to the national park in Georgia, asking Ayoola Smart's Officer Reba to mind his puppy while he's away.

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Meanwhile in Georgia, Keri Russell's nurse Sari is working when her daughter, Brooklyn Prince's Dee Dee skips school with her mate, Christian Convery's Henry to go into the forest to paint a secret waterfall.

Returning from her overnight shift, Sari is contacted on her arrival home by the school to be told Dee Dee is playing truant.

But little does she know a bear has come across the cocaine in the forest and has already mauled a European hiker, Hannah Hoekstra's Elsa in a scene reminiscent of the first life taken in 'Jaws'.

While wandering the forest park, Dee Dee and Henry innocently stumble upon some of the drugs and naively try to sample it.

But this alerts the bear which chases them.

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Sari recruits the local warden, Margo Martindale's Ranger Liz and Jesse Tyler Ferguson's wildlife inspector Peter to help her track down the children.

Before long Daveed and Eddie and Detective Bob are also wandering around the forest while the bear goes on its drug fuelled, killing rampage.

Who will survive and who will live?

With its gory violence and easy laughs, 'Cocaine Bear' is a cheeky, nostalgic throwback to the era of Roger Corman exploitation flicks.

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Banks has rarely been someone who takes herself too seriously as an actress or a director.

So she has a lot of fun with the film, riffing on Hollywood movies as she delivers gag after gag.

There are clear nods to Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws' and 'Jurassic Park,' to the gore of Sam Raimi's films and to the low budget horror of Joe Dante's 'Piranah'.

Warden and Banks also lace the movie with the kind of jet black humour you would find in a Coen Brothers or Tarantino movie.

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Soms of the characters share the gaucheness and quirkiness of 'Raising Arizona' and 'Fargo'.

But the underworld figures are straight out of 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Reservoir Dogs'.

There's a darkly comic shooting that specifically references Tarantino's most celebrated hit. 

There are also some genuinely laugh out loud moments if you are prepared to take 'Cocaine Bear' on its own merits.

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A lot of these are referenced in the trailer - the ambulance chasing scene played out to Depeche Mode's 'I Just Can't Get Enough' is a particular highlight.

But what is also evident is this is a film that knows it isn't 'Moonlight' or 'Parasite'.

It's not going to win a hatful of Oscars.

Instead 'Cocaine Bear' is happy to be trashy, cult entertainment and its director wants her audience to have a lot of laughs and a few thrills.

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As the film unfolds, the cast just enjoy its silliness.

Russell is a suitably feisty lead while Prince and Convery deliver note perfect spoofs of Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazellos' schtick as annoying kids in Spielberg's 'Jurassic Park'.

Whitlock is good value as the weary cop whose old school ways take him to the right spot at the wrong time to catch Syd.

Martindale and Ferguson milk every comic drop from the script, while Jackson and Ehrenrich turn out to be good foils for each other.

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Aaron Holiday amuses as an inept mugger, while Smart makes an impression as Bob's fellow police officer.

In one of his last roles, it is a real joy to see the late Ray Liotta doing what he always did well - playing a streetsmart rogue whose morality is binned while he chases money.

Not everything works in the movie, though.

The CGI effects of the bear are really ropey but they have a kind of rough hewn charm.

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The film also fizzles out in the final act, ending a bit too abruptly and rather messily.

However if you are prepared to enter into the spirit of a film that doesn't take itself seriously, 'Cocaine Bear' is mostly a hoot - thanks to its frankly bonkers plot and some savvy comic performances.

In its first weekend at the US and international box office, Banks' film has already notched up $28 million.

It could be on course to return a pretty decent profit, while Marvel's poorly received 'Ant Man and The Wasp: Quantumania' appears to have lost momentum.

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If it ends up being a big hit for Universal, then fair play to Banks.

Maybe cinema audiences these days really do want more than recycled superhero movies.

Maybe a tongue in cheek film with drug fuelled wildlife will do.

Watching a rough and ready, irreverent film like 'Cocaine Bear' triumph at the box office would be a refreshing change.

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Let's hope Hollywood doesn't go overboard and chase profits with a slew of inferior 'Cocaine Bear' sequels.

It's best to leave a film like this alone.

In fact, Universal should just let 'Cocaine Bear' go out on a high.

('Cocaine Bear' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on February 24, 2023)