I will be honest. I have not seen Grizzly prior to seeing Eric’s article talking about it, you can find that Here. Our other contributor Mistie had, so on her suggestion, I picked up the original 1976 Grizzly so that I could fully compare it to the original. I am not going to do a full critique of the first film, but I will say it is not good. It’s horrible. After we watched the “Jaws in a Forest” film, we picked up a copy of the Rifftrax version, with hilarious commentary. I highly recommend watching that instead of Grizzly, find it Here!
I can honestly say that if you wanted to watch Grizzly II: The Revenge, there is no need to watch the first film. They do not connect to each other. Sorry, Eric, no daughter of Grizzly tie in. Not a single character continues over from the prior film.
So now that we covered the association with the original film, let’s bust into the “sequel.” Like all other critiques, this critique will be based on three categories: Story, Acting, and Overall. Grizzly II: The Revenge will be no exception to that format.
STORY: 1/10
Look I think I might piss some people off with this review, but let’s just pull off the bandaid early. This movie has no story. There clearly were some ideas, but whatever was the prior idea must not exist anymore in film. Originally the movie was going to be called Grizzly II: The Concert.
There is a lot of footage of a concert, but a complete lacking of any real connection to the actual story of the movie.
I know that they are trying to sell the story of revenge, that the bear was hunting the killers of her child, but there are issues with that being the story. For one, the whole premise of a cub being murdered is only shown with badly edited stock footage, so it wasn’t planned in the original film.
Then the movie goes on to show the bear killing campers. Then the bear kills a bear poacher. The concept is supposed to be that the poacher killed the cub, but then why did the bear kill the campers first, and then the poacher. Doesn’t really connect. There are really no scenes of the bear, with the exception of a couple of two-second shots, and then the stage somehow kills the bear and none of it makes sense.
ACTING: 3/10
I think it’s a little bit of a bait and switch, but the movie showcases Charlie Sheen, George Clooney, and Laura Dern being in the film, but they are in the film for maybe 10 minutes at most. They are barely in the film, and it’s crazy for them to get top billing.
Now, John Rhys-Davies is in the film and is a major player for the film. Why didn’t Gimli get top billing? This movie doesn’t deserve John Rhys-Davies. He is a treasure and while I question his decision to play his character as Russian, he literally comes to this film and gives it 100% in his performance. Everyone else is barely a mention.
Louise Fletcher as the soulless political climbing head of the parks, the only connection to the original Grizzly as Joe Dorsey in the first film pretty much was running the same attitude. But her actions feel toothless. There is a part in the film where Fletcher sasses at Timothy Spall, literally insane how this awesome actor from the Harry Potter series found himself in two scenes in this horrible film, and you think that she will get him fired as payback. But NOTHING HAPPENS! Additionally, you wait for Fletcher to be called out on the fact that she held a concert with a bear running around, but NOTHING COMES OF IT! ARRRRGH!
Unbearable! The only points I can give this thing is 3, and only for John Rhys-Davies’s acting.
OVERALL: 2/10
Look, this movie was in the oven for 37 years, a project in the making, but to be honest… put it back in the oven. It’s not done. We appreciate the fact that Suzanne C. Nagy wanted to finally get this movie made, but this is horrible. They tried to put the film together with a bunch of stock footage of forests, and apparently, they didn’t have enough footage of the “concert” as they spliced in several scenes of stock footage. It’s infuriating that this 74-minute film seems to have only got over the hour mark but throwing in unrelated content.
They even spliced in a whole band performance to extend the concert scene. WHY?! The bear murder film didn’t need an additional non-story related band performance to pad the time! The worst thing about this film, however, is probably the CGI bear murder intro that makes no sense, I talked about it earlier in the Story section. They splice in a bunch of bears, forest, and tree footage. I get it, they want to be like the first film that filed the movie with forest footage, but at least they actually filmed that there. Oh, and remember the bear that got shot in the beginning? They re-used that footage a second time later into the film, without the murder.
My brain died there.
Conner’s Final Thought(s):
This movie isn’t bad, in a good way. It’s just a bad film. That being said, now that I’ve seen it, I think back to a moment in literary history.
I remember the Duke and the Dauphin in Huckleberry Finn, who convince the audience that while they were tricked, they can’t admit it to their friends and families they were tricked. So the audience then has to force their friends and families to see the show, so that they too can be tricked by the scam. So… please watch this movie. So we can all suffer together.
The movie is finally being released, thanks to Gravitas Ventures, in select theaters and on-demand on January 8, 2021. If you want to suffer with us, head here to find out where you can watch this film!
Facebook Comments