Incannerax
What a waste of my time!!!
Solemplex
To me, this movie is perfection.
Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
Tedfoldol
everything you have heard about this movie is true.
GL84
Going through a shortcut in the woods, a family group get stranded in the area and must fend off a mother grizzly bear's relentless, retribution-fueled attacks as they struggle to survive the animal's continuous antics after accidentally killing it's cub.There wasn't a whole lot to this one that really works. Among the few good parts here is the fact that the film's rather brutal and relentless attacks provide plenty of highlights in here, as sometimes this manages to be quite entertaining and enjoyable due to the high-action content of the scene. There's some rather fun scenes here where it's going through some intense areas here with the initial attack on the bear that sets their ordeal in motion where they relentlessly gun down the one creature only to have the mate come upon it in a nicely touching scene while the other action scenes here come off really nicely. A thrilling chase through the woods to reach a sewer pipe for safety and several other rather fine set-pieces showing them trapped inside the car as it tries to get at them work well enough here, though the big factor of tying it into the revenge angle where it has to bring them back to the car gives this a somewhat more suspenseful that makes for the bulk of the film's positives. These elements, which are helped along by the use of a real bear in here, do make this a rather surprising creature feature at times and frustrating at others with a long series of flaws. The main feature here is the fact of this one featuring so little bear action that it's almost taken out of the whole film, which is a huge problem as to accomplish this the film manages to feature something so irritating and aggravating that this overcomes the positives mostly on it's own. The majority of this comes from the cast as this is a collection of some of the most unappealing collection of so-called friends around since they're constantly sniping at each other, belittling others' input to the situation and generally continuing to push their old feelings of success and accomplishments for much of the film here, then it spends the last twenty-minutes in an annoying twist that does nothing for the film as a whole with their adultery angle. It's not that fun to pile on an utterly deplorable trait like this onto people who are already this hard to hard so they're hardly fun to watch, and really brings the film down as a whole. Likewise, these bear-lacking scenes are further compromised by having the few attack scenes in here are filmed in such manners as to be absolutely indecipherable as to what actually happened. In addition to the usual jagged editing that effectively shakes around the visuals at disorienting angles or so rapid-fire edits that there's so many things going on it can't be accurately seen, there's also the fact that there's a digital haloing effect occurring on many scenes that look so amateurish and low-rent that it really blocks out the image as if the focus is entirely disoriented. The last flaw here is the fact that the film is generally so flimsy on the part of it's story that this one really seems flawed on numerous levels, being so flimsy as to be completely unworthy of a feature film of this length without tacking on additional material to boost it up or even answers the real question of what makes the bear capable of understanding the concepts of revenge and retribution. These here hold this one back considerably.Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence and violence-against-animals.
vengeance20
When seeing this on the shelf in HMV! I just had to have it!The film was pretty good! A Unique concept in bear attacks & survival!The Death's were OK, not much can be expected from a film which is about bears attacking, when it's got the whole "It does exactly what it says on the box" sort of thing!Not a gory as I'd hoped! Was expecting a little more blood & guts!Was kind of hoping it would end where they all survived instead of the boring overused female sole survivor concept which itself has been done to death! Not to mention sexist! Also when Sam got to the Steakhouse but didn't bother to rush in then got dragged back, by the bear to the car! That disappointed me!Overall it was a pretty good! Worth a watch I'd say 8/10
MBunge
I laughed out loud many times while watching this movie. Unfortunately, it's not a comedy. No, Bear is a low-budget horror flick gone terribly, hilariously wrong. And it's the best kind of wrong, too. The sort that gets wronger and wronger as it goes along. This film starts out cheap looking but with a faint hint there might be something interesting in the offing. Then it slides into bad and keeps going into awful until about an hour in, it plunges to near Ed Woodian depths of suck. It's the sort of cinema suck where the filmmakers have absolutely no clue how horrible they are and the goofiest bits of addle-brained nonsense are allowed to play out on the screen. If these folks were trying to go for "so bad, it's good", I salute their accomplishment. If they weren't
I pity them.Giving credit where it's due, this is a great concept for a motion picture. Combine Open Water with Jaws, except it's set in the woods with a grizzly bear. Tell me that's not a brilliant bit of inspiration! Of course, whatever screenwriters Roel Reiné and Ethan Wiley did to come up with it must have blown out every synapse in their brains because everything after the concept is staggeringly poor. Well, not everything. Some of the camera work in Bear is, well, not good but it shows a few glimmers of talent. And I suppose the bear does an okay acting job. The rest? Hoo boy.Belittling older brother Sam (Patrick Scott Lewis), his nondescript wife Liz (Mary Alexandra Stiefvater), his family disappointment younger brother Nick (Brendan Michael Coughlin) and Nick's hippie skank girlfriend Christine (Katie Lowes) take a shortcut through the woods on the way to a party for Sam and Nick's parents. A flat tire sends them off the road and a bear wanders by, so Sam goes all Scarface on the bear and shoots it dead, blasting away even as it tries to lumber off. When the bear's angry mate arrives, Sam is out of bullets and the group has to take refuge in their broken down minivan and try to find a way to survive a 400 pound beast who's out for vengeance! So, I guess instead of Jaws this is more like Orca. Yeah, that's right. Orca.I'm not going to go into a lot of the details of where, how and why Bear stinks on ice. This thing really is so mirthfully ghastly that you've got to experience it for yourself. I will say that, while these filmmakers did use a trained grizzly for many scenes, they also extensively employ a guy in a bear suit. It's not a good bear suit, either. Have you ever seen those Bear City vignettes from Saturday Night Live? It's more like that kind of bear suit. There's also a point where the film turns into a episode of the Maury Povich show with the bear playing the part of Maury.I'm not kidding about that.This is one of the most difficult movies I've ever tried to evaluate. Bear is truly atrocious, but in an at times spectacularly entertaining fashion. I didn't enjoy it, but I enjoyed laughing at it. To be fair to other films, the quality here deserves two stars. I must bump it up to three, though, because I had a much better time watching this than any other two star flick I've suffered through.
DontSeeMe
If you managed to survive the really scary scene when the bear is terrorizing the gang by clawing through holes in the sewer pipe, pause the DVD at 38:31 and look in the upper left. You can see a dude wearing glasses, leaning on the pipe, wearing a bear paw glove! . . . I also found it interesting that the older brother was dragged back to the car from the steakhouse, yet was not in a state of shock. If that were me I don't think I'd be able to join in on the current discussion. The conversation between the younger bro and his sister-in-law was rather casual also, considering that the first girl was brutally mauled in their faces, and everyone seemed to completely forget about her. Definitely a 3 rating for humor on this one. It was very campy, I was reminded of Wendigo and had some really good laughs!