After 37 years in the making Grizzly II: Revenge is finally about to be released on January 8, 2021. Grizzly II, directed by André Szöts, is the sequel to William Girdler‘s 1976 movie Grizzly.
The movie follows a bear out for revenge after a hunter kills its cub. During its rampage a huge concert is taking place, I’m sure you know the rest.
George Clooney, Laura Dern, Charlie Sheen are featured in the original footage with Louise Fletcher, John Rhys-Davies, and Steve Inwood also starring, but the three main stars advertised are only in the film for around five minutes.
I am trying to put this politely, but this movie is a mess. The scenes a patched together in what may very well be the roughest and sloppiest way I’ve ever seen. It’s a perfect example of what happens when editing goes wrong. It looks like it was just thrown together. There’s no transition from scene to scene, the music stops suddenly and in some scenes, and the dialogue is dubbed and doesn’t even match the movement of the character’s mouths. Hell, sometimes their mouths aren’t even moving at all, for example, there’s a scene where three characters are talking and one reveals that another’s brother has been killed. The guy’s mouth barely moves but we hear an entire conversation.
As for the bear, several of the scenes look like basic stock footage. Based on size and color, it doesn’t even appear to be the same bear featured in the nature scenes and the scenes where it’s on the attack.
When it comes to the acting, well it isn’t good. It feels forced and a bit ridiculous in a lot of ways, and not in a good way.
Grizzly II took 37 years to see release. It could have waited a little longer to be put together right. I guess you could say that it’s kind of unbearable. If you want to know if I’d recommend the movie to you, the answer is no. If you want to watch a decent movie about a bear attack go watch The Revenant.
